Let's Read Xanth (You Were Stupid As A Teen, Too)

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Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
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2014-2018

Chapter 5 shoots us back over to Ivy.

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The baby Gap Dragon was only a fraction of its adult size and not much more than triple Ivy's mass. But its primary features were intact; it had six legs, a sinuous tail, a set of wings too small to enable it to fly, and a horrendous head full of teeth. Its scales were metallic, a rather pretty green with iridescent highlights, and the tip of its tail was knifelike.

The dragon eyed Ivy. It slavered. Its tongue slopped around its face, moistening its teeth and making them gleam. A jet of pure, clean, white steam issued from its throat. Big creatures were now too much for the dragon to tackle, but Ivy was little and succulent. It was ready to feast.

Ivy looked the dragon in the snout. She clapped her hands with girlish glee. "Oh, goody!" she exclaimed in delight. "A playmate!"

The dragon paused. This was not, it suspected, the proper reception accorded its kind by lone human beings of any size. Its memory of its adult life had been excised along with its age, so it could not remember any prior encounters with this life form; but its basic instincts were more important than its memory anyway. It was geared to chase down a terrified and fleeing morsel, to steam it into a tasty, half-cooked state, to crunch it into digestible chunks soaked in delicious blood, to swallow the delectable pieces, then to burp afterward and take a pleasant nap. It was also geared to flee anything larger than itself or more dangerous, such as a man with an enchanted sword. Creatures of approximately its own size and ferocity it would fight, establishing territorial prerogatives. It was vaguely aware that it had once possessed an excellent private territory, but it had no idea now where this was. That hardly mattered here, because it faced prey, not a monster similar to itself. But the Dragon lacked experience and instincts relating to friendly receptions. What was the proper response?

Ivy walked up to it fearlessly. "My very own pet dragon!" she cried. "Green, like Mommy's hair! To be my friend and companion and to guard me when I'm afraid." She reached out to pat the ugly snout. "What a lovely creature!"

The dragon was not at all reassured. In fact, it found itself athwart a dilemma. Chase, flee, or fight? None of the signals matched a pattern. No one had ever called it lovely before or patted it on the snout. So it remained stationary, taking no action. A nervous waft of steam puffed from it.

"Nice steam!" Ivy said. "You're a steamer, so your name is Stanley." She had been told tales of strange, funny Mundania, where impossible things existed, such as metal machines that traveled on wheels and people who had no magic. She wasn't good at comprehending impossibilities, but she had an apt memory for names. "Stanley Steamer," she repeated.

(Pun Count: 69)

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"You're wonderful!"

Ivy was indulging in a simple but subtle process of identification and transference. First, she was a creature of love, for love had always abounded in her family, so naturally love radiated from her. She bestowed on her toys and pets and friends the kind of unquestioning love she received herself. Also, she was aware of the way men treated women, as exemplified by her father's handling of her mother. King Dor placed Queen Irene on a pedestal. Irene complained about it often but was privately rather pleased. Ivy had spent many hours of many days searching Castle Roogna for that pedestal, but it seemed to be invisible, like the ghosts. Finally she had realized that it was magic, like the monster-under-the-bed that only she could see. King Dor was able to put Queen Irene on the pedestal that no one else could see or feel, and Irene could not get off it, complain as she might. It was a special enchantment he could perform. Ivy liked enchantment, so she had tried to develop her own invisible pedestal on which she could place her friends. She had by diligent effort perfected it, but had lacked a suitable friend for it. Smash the Ogre was really too big to fit on it. But now she had a suitable prospect, and so she placed her new friend Stanley on it. He was the very best of all the little dragons she knew!

Stanley, like Ivy's mother, was not entirely comfortable on that pedestal; but again, like her mother, he was not entirely displeased. There were things to be said in favor of pedestals, and he was the right size for this one. What made Ivy's pedestal especially effective was her talent of enhancement. Whatever traits a person or creature possessed, in her eyes, became more pronounced, powerful, durable, and good. When she had noted how well her mother grew plants, her mother had grown them even better. When Ivy had met the friendly, talkative yak, the creature had become more friendly and helpful. Now Ivy perceived how handsome and nice Stanley Steamer really was.

Stanley suffered a period of disorientation, as was normal for creatures abruptly discovering themselves on pedestals. He hadn't known his name was Stanley. He hadn't known he was wonderful. Certainly he hadn't known he was lovely. Then the full power of Ivy's magic took over, for it was Magician-caliber sorcery, the kind of power few mortals comprehended, and the dragon became exactly what she perceived him to be--her handsome and loyal friend, playmate, and pet. Like many a male before him, he succumbed to the enchantment of a sweet little female, without even knowing the nature of her sorcery. He was not aware that he had lost a battle of remarkable significance; he didn't even know there had been a battle. Because his natural instincts had no guidelines for this role, he had to accept hers. He was precisely what she wanted.

Ivy, because she was what she was, a creature of love and innocence and unsuspected power, had in an instant tamed one of the most formidable monsters of Xanth--the Gap Dragon. No one had ever done that before. Some people might have considered it a miracle, but it was not; it was merely an early indication of Ivy's own formidability, which was allied to that of her grandfather Bink.

"You must have very hard scales," Ivy said, tapping the scales of Stanley's neck; and now they were metal-hard. "Such pretty colors, too!" And the colors intensified, manifesting as elegant shades of green and blue and gray with iridescent sparkles. Stanley was now so pretty as to smite the unwary eye. "Oh, you're such a nice dragon!" She hugged him about the neck and kissed his green ear.

Bemused, the dragon accepted her embrace. Had he not been so hard-scaled and pretty-colored, he might have melted right into the ground, for Ivy's affection was a very special thing, quite apart from her magic.

"And such nice, hot steam," she continued. Stanley jetted a superheated jet, much hotter than he had ever managed before.

Ivy's attention soon wandered, for she was, after all, only a little girl without any great store of attention. She hardly needed it. "I'm hungry! Aren't you?"

Stanley agreed that he was hungry by nodding his head, making the scales of his neck glitter nicely. In fact, now he was ravenous.

They go looking for food.

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Nearby was a crabapple tree, with quite a number of ripe crabs. "Gee, I bet those are good," she said, reaching for one. But the crab snapped at her with its huge pincer, and she hastily withdrew her hand. She had learned the hard way about things that pinched, back at Castle Roogna.

(Pun Count: 70)

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Still, those crabs looked awfully good. "I know!" she decided, for she prided herself on her ability to solve problems when she tried; indeed, that ability had intensified to do justice to her pride. "Mommy cooks crabs in hot water. Then they don't snap!" She had not realized, before this moment, why her mother went through the ritual with the water, putting hot peppers into the pot to bring the liquid to the boiling point, then dumping in the crabs. It was a significant revelation, worthy of Ivy's effort.

(Pun Count: 71) She gets Stanley to steam the crabs, making him smart enough ot understand why she needs him to. She also uses Stanley's fangs to crack the crab open so she can eat the meat. Stanley eats his own crabs. Night closes in, so they now need a place to sleep.

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The dragon, of course, normally slept anywhere he wanted to; no other creature would attack him. But he was much smaller and less experienced than he had been, and was daunted by the threat of darkness. How would he escape the monster under the bed if he had no bed to climb on? So if Ivy believed it was necessary to find a good place to sleep, then it must be true.

They then find a tree that grows babies armed with helmets and spears.

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They had been steamed, but they were not cooked. Each fallen man bounded to his feet, and a company of them gathered below the tree. "Oh, babies!" Ivy exclaimed, perceiving that each wore diapers. "This is an infant-tree!"

(Pun Count: 72)

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These were pretty tough babies. Each had a helmet and a little sword or spear. Now they scowled and marched, their weapons extended threateningly. Stanley wafted more steam at them, but the troops of the infant-tree forged on, using little shields to deflect the steam. Their red color was that of anger, not of ripening or cooking.

They flee, finding another tree, which they need to climb.

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They were in luck. Behind the tree was a crane. The bird had long, thin legs and a long, thin neck and a long, thin bill. It was a large bird, so that when it stood up straight, its head disappeared into the leaves of the tree. Indeed, it was engaged in lifting stones from the ground to the foliage, cranking up its head in slow, measured stages.

(Pun Count: 73)

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Ivy paused, watching this procedure. She concentrated, and finally figured it out: the bird was practicing rocky-tree.

(Pun Count: 74)

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The troops of the infant-tree were in hot pursuit, delayed only by the shortness of their stride and by their need to detour more widely around the projecting roots than Ivy and Stanley had to do. Ivy didn't waste time. "Mister Crane, will you lift us up into the tree?" she asked. "I'll give you--" She hesitated, searching about herself for something to offer, for she knew that it was proper to give favors for favors. She found a metal disk in her pocket and brought it out. "This."

The crane peered at the disk. The disk gleamed in the last slanting beam of daylight. The crane was charmed, for it liked bright things. It accepted the disk, then hooked its bill into Ivy's skirt-band and hoisted her up into the foliage. She spun dizzily with the sudden elevation, but grabbed the branches as they came within reach and scrambled up into the soft darkness of the leaves.

They make a bed out of branches and leaves, and the tree keeps them dry in the storm. In the morning, Ivy remembers that she's not at home, and is overjoyed to be with Stanley. She decides to stay in the tree.

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Ivy looked for a bathroom, but found none. She discovered, though, that anything she did dropped harmlessly through the floor of foliage and out of sight and out of mind, so that was no problem. Birds did it, after all; no wonder they found trees so convenient!

Next she looked for a kitchen, with no better success. But there were assorted fruits and nuts dangling within reach, so she plucked and ate them. Stanley wasn't sure about this form of sustenance, but at her urging he consumed a bunch of redhot pepper fruits and found them delicious. He liked hot stuff; it helped heat his steam just as effectively as it heated Ivy's mother's water. Then he ate some of the more juicy fruits, for he also needed liquid from which to generate his steam.

Now they moved on through the tree, exploring. Foliage was everywhere, making this a jungle in itself, but there was a certain pattern to it. The branches twisted generally upward, and the layers of leaves became firmer at the higher levels. This was vaguely like an enormous house, with many floors and walls and ramps; it seemed to extend forever. Stanley had no trouble, for his body was long and low and sinuous, but Ivy felt nervous on the smaller branches.

Eventually, they reach the highest part of the tree.

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There were some large, individual leaves projecting from the nether mass of the treescape, with black patterns on them. The nearest one was marked WELCOME TO COVEN-TREE, and below it a smaller leaf was marked DO NOT LITTER. Ivy was too young to read, and the Gap Dragon had never learned how, so they ignored these leaves.

(Pun Count: 75)

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Ahead was a series of leafy cages containing strange animals. The sign-leaf by the first said GI-ANTS. Inside were several huge and strange insects, each as big as Ivy herself. Their bodies resembled those of ant lions, but their heads were strange. Ivy pondered a moment, then managed to remember where she had seen creatures like these before. "In a picture!--" she exclaimed. "In a book of weird Mundane monsters. Mommy called them 'ants.' They must be a crossbreed of ant lions and, and--" But here she stalled; she could not figure out what could account for the changed heads. "But I thought they were smaller."

(Pun Count: 77) They move on.

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The next cage was labeled MA-MOTHS. Inside were the biggest night butterflies Ivy had ever seen, with furry antennae and folded dark wings. They carried no butter, however. They seemed to be asleep, though it was day.

(Pun Count: 79)

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Another cage contained an ENOR-MOUSE crunching up a huge chunk of cheese. Others had TREMEN-DOES, which were large, split-hoofed animals, vaguely like the yak, eating leaves; GIGAN-TICS sucking on a big bloodroot; STUPEN-DOES, even larger than the other does; and IM-MENS, which were ogre-sized men.

(Pun Count: 84) Ivy decides to let the creatures go, getting Stanley to steam the locks open. The creatures charge around choatically when they escape, so Ivy and Stanley head to the next tree.

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This new tree was very pretty. WELCOME TO PAGEAN-TREE, its leaf-sign said, and of course they ignored it. They were too interested in all the pretty colors of the foliage, much brighter than the leaves of the last tree, and in the remarkable forms this new foliage assumed.

(Pun Count: 85)

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There were also marching bands, each band a strip of cloth or cord or rubber with little legs that tramped along at a measured pace, somewhat the way the tough babies of the infant-tree had marched. Ivy was entranced, and Stanley became interested, too, since she thought he would be.

(Pun Count: 86)

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But after a while, even the splendors of the pagean-tree palled, for life was more than pageans, and they jumped to the foliage of still another tree. This was, its sign said, a DATE PALM, its fronds representing all the days of the year. Day lilies grew in little cups of earth, but only one bloomed each day, so that the precise date was always marked. In the very center grew a large century plant, its thick, long, green leaves spreading out in a globe, spiked along the sides and tips.

(Pun Count: 88)

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In the middle of the century plant was something really fascinating. It seemed to be another plant with straight stalks clothed by many small, round, bright leaves that glittered in the sunlight like golden coins. "Ooooh, pretty!" Ivy exclaimed. "I want one!" Little girls resembled big cranes in this respect; they liked pretty things.

Ivy can't reach the coins, though, because of the spurs of the century plant. Stanley steams them soft, but progress is slow. Ivy grabs for a coin, and the moment she touches it, light flares, making the area glow eerily, the same glow as from Irene's vision. Then, Ivy and Stanley are frozen in place.

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They had been caught by one of the least dramatic but most powerful plants in Xanth, the one that ultimately governed and brought down almost every other living creature: thyme.

(Pun Count: 89)

Pun Count: 89 by the end of Chapter 5.

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Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 6 returns us to Irene in the morning, after the storm clears. Irene makes clothing out of towels, and they start their search again, but none of the plants remember Ivy. A griffin bothers them after a few hours and Irene grows an aggressive boxwood tree to fight if off. Finally, Grundy finds an anchor plant that remembers Ivy despite the storm washing out most of the plant memories. (Pun Count: 90) It also reports that Ivy was accompanied by the Gap Dragon.

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"The Gap Dragon has no friends!" Irene said, perversely arguing with him. "It's a loner. It eats everything it catches."

"That can't be entirely true," Chem said. "Unless the dragon is immortal, it must have had parents, and it will have to breed to reproduce itself. So there must be a place in its scheme for companionship. And now it has been rejuvenated. It could indeed be immortal, if it uses the Fountain of Youth regularly--but I doubt that is the case. Regardless, it could be lonely, as a child in that situation would be."

"Some child!" Grundy exclaimed.

"Children do differ from adults," the centaur insisted. "They are more impressionable, more open--"

"More likely the dragon just didn't happen to be hungry at the moment, so it saved her for the next meal," Grundy suggested helpfully.

Chem aimed a forehoof at the golem but missed. Irene, just beginning to believe that her child might possibly be all right, suffered a renewed pang. The Gap Dragon was a scheming, canny creature, smarter than the average dragon. "We had better catch up to them soon!" she said grimly.

They traced the youngsters to an infant-tree. Several of the tough babies remembered the pair. "'Sure we chased 'em,'" Grundy translated. "The beast really steamed us! We don't take that shift from anyone!'"

"But where did they go?" Irene demanded.

"What's it to you, old dame?" another baby asked, hanging loose as the golem translated.

(Pun Count: 91)

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"Just answer the question, you little swinger," Irene said sternly.

(Pun Count: 92)

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The baby paused in its swinging. "They fled beyond the witch's tree," it said. "By the time we made a forced-march there, the trail was cold. We've got better things to do than hunt for dummies."

"One of those dummies was my daughter!" Irene exclaimed angrily.

"Tough shift, sister," the infant retorted.

"I'll tough-shift you, you fat brat!" Irene cried. She threw down a seed. "Grow!"

The seed sprouted into a cowslip plant. In moments it was depositing slippery and smelly cow-chips all around. Next time the infants marched, they would find themselves slipping in truly shiftless stuff.

(Pun Count: 93) They head onwards, and eventually find a new plant.

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They came to a bleak area, yellowish overall, where normal trees gave way to strange, thick-trunked growths from which grew long, thin, grasslike leaves with upright spikes at the top bearing whitish flowers. Grundy queried one and discovered it was a grasstree named Xanthorrhoed.

"Now this is interesting," Chem said. Centaurs were chronically fascinated by unusual fauna and flora. "Xanthorrhoed is one of the really primitive, fundamental plants of Xanth, as can be told from its name."

(Pun Count: 94) As Irene ponders getting a seed, a witch shows up. She may have news of Ivy. However...

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The witch looked Irene in the face. The witch was an ugly old crone, hunched and dirty, with a wart on her nose. "Go to my hut yonder, enter the cage there, and lock yourself in," she said.

Irene tried to resist this ridiculous directive, but found herself compelled. The witch's talent was instant hypnotism, or something stronger; Irene had to obey.

She walked to the hut, entered it, and found the cage inside. She got into it and drew the door closed, hearing the click of its lock.

Now that she had done the witch's bidding, Irene found the compulsion relieved. She was in control of herself again. But she was locked in, and the wooden bars of the cage were too strong for her to break. She had a knife, but knew it would take a long time to saw through one of these bars.

Irene grows a fire fern, burning through the cage. (Pun Count: 95) She also grows an octopus plant and a club moss to better arm herself. (Pun Count: 97) She attacks the witch, but forgot abouyt the gaze - the witch gets Irene to release her and put down the club. The witch forces her to sit and listen.

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"I shall introduce myself," the witch said. "I am Xanthippe, the wicked witch of the wilderness. I associate with the Xanthorrhoed trees, the root plants of Xanth, as their name suggests. You have intruded on my property and you are in my power. I see you are a sorceress yourself, and that pleases me more than you may presently appreciate, but you remain subject to my will. Because I have your daughter."

Irene could not speak, since she had been ordered to listen. But the news electrified her, and she strained forward attentively.

"She and the little dragon are captives of my thyme plant," the witch continued. "They intruded on my premises, as you did, and indulged in much mischief before they were restrained. They loosed my collection of gargan-tuons. There are tuons rampaging all over my coven-tree, where I keep my most valuable exhibits. So they had to be punished. They will remain enchanted forever, until I decide to free them, or at least a century, whichever comes first." She eyed Irene speculatively.

(Pun Count: 98)

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"Oh, to be sure, with your clever control of plants, you could free them, too--but only I know where my thyme plant is hidden and what menaces are guarding it. I can have your child destroyed before you can rescue her. You must have my cooperation, if you wish to save her--and you shall have that only at my price."

Now Irene could speak. "You have the nerve to hold my daughter hostage? Do you know who I am?"

"No," the witch said. "Who are you?"

Irene suddenly realized that this old crone could be much worse to handle if she learned she had the Queen of Xanth in her power. Better to leave her in ignorance. Irene found that the old hag's power could compel her actions but not her words--except when words were actions, as in directing her plants to grow or let someone go--so she didn't have to say more than she chose. "I am--Irene. What do I have to do to get my child back?"

The witch studied her appraisingly again. "That's the proper attitude. You strike me as a fine, healthy young woman, with good magical power and some practical skills, such as making your own clothing from towels. You should make an excellent mate for my son, and your talent with plants would assist my own collections."

Irene was aghast. "A m--m--!" She couldn't get the word out. "But I'm married! I have a child! That's why I'm out here looking for her!"

"Yes, I want a woman who can breed. I want my son to settle down, to be a family man. To be under the influence of a competent woman and a proven breeder. You'll do."

"I will not do!" Irene flared. "You may be able to make me do something for five minutes, but you could never get me to stay with a man I don't love!"

"There is much a knowledgeable woman can do with a man in five minutes, with or without love," Xanthippe remarked. "I can see that you do that, and do it again on another day, as many times as are necessary--and once you carry my son's child, you may not be quite so eager to leave him."

Irene was shocked again at the witch's directness and unscrupulousness. "This is impossible!"

"I assure you it is possible. How do you think I got my son?"

How else, indeed! Even when young, Xanthippe must have been too ugly to attract a man. But her magic made attraction unnecessary; the man would perform at her behest. Irene tried again. "I mean my husband would--"

"What would he do, after he learned you carried another man's child?" the witch inquired.

Irene didn't like to contemplate that, so she didn't. "You can't be serious! The moment you aren't watching me, I'll destroy you!"

"And what, then, will happen to your daughter, who remains in my power?" the witch asked. "You may have her back only after a sibling is on the way."

"A sibling!" Irene found it hard even to grasp the enormity of the witch's design. "I'll never--"

"You were unable to locate your daughter before; can you do so now?"

Irene was silent. She couldn't stand the thought of putting Ivy into any unnecessary jeopardy. She couldn't risk wiping out the witch until she had gotten Ivy out of danger.

"I will introduce you to my son Xavier," Xanthippe said. "Perhaps you will like him, though that really doesn't matter. It would simply make it easier for you. Come this way."

They head over to an orange tree - a tree that is literally orange. (Pun Count: 99) Chem and Grundy are imprisoned there. Xanthippe tells Irene to wait and then heads off. Grundy suggests that Irene free them, but she can't without endangering Ivy. Zora Zombie seemed to be immune to Xanthippe and wandered off.

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Before Irene could answer, the witch returned. Behind her was a hippogryph carrying a young man, evidently the witch's son.

The remarkable thing about both man and animal was their matching color. Both were golden yellow. The hippogryph had the forepart of a griffin, with a great golden bird-of-prey head and splendid yellow-feathered wings, now folded back along his body; the rest of him was equine, with powerful horse muscles and flashing yellow tail. The man, too, was yellow, at least in his clothing, with vibrant blond hair and beard and a tan that almost glowed like polished gold. He was actually quite handsome.

"What a creature!" Chem breathed with reluctant admiration. Irene wasn't sure which creature the centaur meant, but suspected it was the equine one.

The party arrived. "Get down, Xavier," Xanthippe said. "I want you to meet a woman."

"Aw, Maw," the man said. "Xap and I were just going flying!"

"You ungrateful yellow-bellied wretch!" the witch screamed, showing instant ire that startled Irene because of its contrast to her prior manner. "Get down from there!"

Xavier, the dutiful son, grimaced and dismounted. He seemed to be in his early twenties, and his bronzed muscles bulged. Irene was privately amazed that a woman as ugly as Xanthippe could have a son as robust as Xavier. It must have been some man she compelled to sire her child! But why not? She could afford the best! The witch evidently had excellent taste in human flesh. That thought almost made Irene blush, for the witch had chosen her to--never mind.

"See this woman?" Xanthippe said to her son, indicating Irene. "Do you like her?"

Xavier hardly glanced at Irene. "Oh, sure. Maw," he agreed. "She'd be real pretty if she got out of them towels. Now can I go flying?"

"Not yet, son. Notice the body on her. Good legs, good front, nice face. A sweet one to hold."

"Sure, Maw. She's great, if you like that type. Now can I--?"

"Shut up, you imbecile!" the witch screamed at him, and the powerful youth was cowed.

"What a sharp tongue you have. Granny!" Grundy called from his cage.

"I can make her take off the towels so you can see--"

Xanthippe continued in her reasonable tone.

"Naw, that's too much trouble. Maw. Me an' Xap was just going out--"

"I think she would make a good wife for you," the witch told her son firmly.

"Aw, Maw, I don't want a wife! I just want to fly." Xavier turned again to his steed, ready to mount. Irene didn't know whether to feel relieved at the youth's evident disinterest, or affronted. She wasn't that far over the hill!

"Freeze, you pea-brained creep!" Xanthippe shrieked, and he froze. "You will marry this woman, what's-her-name--"

"Irene, you old hen!" Grundy called helpfully.

"Quiet, you pea-brained creep!" Irene snapped at him in a semiperfect fury.

"This woman Irene," the witch concluded. "She's a good match for you. She's a plant Sorceress, she's got spirit, and she can breed."

"Aw, Maw, I don't know anything about--"

"You don't need to know! This woman has had experience. I'll just give her an order, and she will take it from there. You will find it very easy, even pleasant, to do what is necessary. After that you can go fly."

Aside from the horror of her situation, Irene found a moment to marvel at the naivet� of the young man. Was he really that ignorant of the facts of life? Then she remembered that Dor had been almost as innocent at first. Men seldom knew as much about life as they thought they did; perhaps Xavier merely had a better notion of his ignorance than some did.

"Aw, Maw, I want to fly now!" he protested. "Can't it wait for a rainy day or something?"

A rainy day! Irene bit her tongue. It would be just her luck that the fractious cloud would spot her again and make that day come true.

The witch perceived a problem. Obviously she didn't want to be too harsh with her handsome son or to introduce him to the facts of life too abruptly. Irene noticed that Xanthippe did not use her power on Xavier, but employed persuasion instead. She did seem to care about him and genuinely wanted what she thought was best for him. That hardly excused her complete callousness about other people, but did show that she wasn't all bad. Irene would have had more sympathy if her own welfare were not in peril.

Xanthippe tried another kind of coercion. "Your steed needs a good mate, too. I'll breed him to this filly centaur, what's-her-name--"

"Chem, old trot," Grundy filled in.

"Shut up, you imbecile!" Chem snapped, swishing her tail fiercely.

"This filly Chem," the witch finished. "She's young, but centaurs are smart animals; she'll produce a fine foal. Maybe it will have the brains of a human and the wings of a gryph. Wouldn't you like that?"

The hippogryph, no dummy, backed away nervously and half spread his splendid wings. He didn't want to be bred to a centaur!

"Aw, Maw," Xavier said. "Now you've scared Xap. He don't want any foal! Can't we go flying instead?"

"No, you can't, nitwit!" the witch shrieked. "I'm going to breed you both to these fine females. I want to be a grandmother before I kick off. Now let's get on with it!"

Irene, shocked by the whole business, had been silent. Now she realized that she might, after all, have a common cause with the witch's son. "Xanthippe, Xavier doesn't want to marry, especially not an old married woman like me. You can't force your son into a commitment like this and hope to keep his love."

"He'll do what I say!" the witch snapped.

"Maybe so. But you will inevitably alienate him, and the moment you pass away, he'll do what he wants. Can't you see, it's no good! He doesn't want me, and I don't want him. These things never work out unless they're voluntary. Love is one thing you can't compel with your stare. You really have nothing to gain, and considerable to lose."

"Oh, I don't know," Grundy said. "A smart, spirited, golden grandchild who can breed--"

Chem, closest to him, stomped the top of the golem's cage with a forehoof The sound was like a minor crack of thunder. The golem took the hint and shut up.

"Confound it, I can't wait for him to get around to it," the witch complained. "All he wants to do is fly! A wife and family will make him grow up and settle down."

Irene had to agree with that analysis. Her husband Dor had settled down considerably after their marriage, and that made him a better King. But the witch had decided on the wrong match up!

Irene suggests that, perhaps, she could grow a plant for Xanthippe instead, but Xanthippe has plenty already. Irene suggests getting the exhibits back, but Xanthippe was planning to change them anyway - she just wanted them out in a more orderly way. She wants nothing except for her son to rape Irene.

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"Then I'll fetch him a nymph!"

"Nymphs don't breed. They're playmates, not reproducers. He's already had more than enough play time."

Chem suggests there must be something. Xanthippe says that the only other thing she wants, they can't get.

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"Try us," Chem said. "We might surprise you."

"Yeah, try them, battle-axe," Grundy agreed.

"Quiet, you runty rag snippet," the witch told him. "I am just about to try them! Xavier, come stand before this woman, so I can give her the order--"

"I meant the alternative service!" Chem cried.

"Nice choice of terms, mare-mane," Grundy remarked.

Xanthippe wants three seeds from the Tree of Seeds, which Chem has never heard of.

quote:

"It's on Mount Parnassus, hidden in the illiterate wilderness," the witch explained. "Only my son's hippogryph knows how to reach it from here. And the Tree is guarded by the Simurgh."

"The Simurgh!" Chem explained. "That's the wisest bird alive! It has seen the destruction of the universe three times and has all the knowledge of the ages! I didn't realize it remained in Xanth; I thought it had departed centuries ago. How I'd love to interview it, even for an hour!"

"Which relates to the rest of my desire," Xanthippe said. "What I'd like is a feather from its tail. Those feathers have magical properties, and can cure wounds. But the way to Mount Parnassus is so dangerous--"

"This Tree of Seeds," Irene said.. "What kind of seeds does it have?"

"All the seeds produced by all the wild plants that exist," the witch said, her wicked old eyes turning dreamy for a moment. "The seed from which my own coven-tree sprouted came from there centuries ago. Likewise the pagean-tree, geome-tree, infant-tree, indus-tree and psychia-tree."

(Pun Count: 102)

quote:

"I would very much like to see that psychia-tree," Chem murmured. "I suspect that would be a mind-affecting experience."

(Pun Count: 103)

quote:

"There are seeds on the Tree of Seeds that no longer exist anywhere else," the witch concluded. "Seeds no ordinary person can even imagine!"

"I'm sure a centaur could imagine them," Chem said.

"Such as the ex-seed, the pro-seed, and the inter-seed," Xanthippe said.

(Pun Count: 106) The party volunteers to get the three seeds that Xanthippe wants, along with the feather, if she'll return Ivy. Xanthippe thinks it's a bad deal - they might die in the doing.

quote:

Oh. There was that indeed. Yet if the alternative was to be involuntarily mated to the witch's son--

"We'll do it," Irene decided. "We'll fetch your feather and seeds. If we don't return, you lose. But if we do return, you will have the items you have always wanted that you can get in no other way."

There's just one problem: only Xap knows how to get to Parnassus, and only Xavier can control the beast. Grundy suggests they come along.

quote:

Irene winced. No problem? The last thing she wanted was to associate closely with the witch's son, and she doubted Chem was any more sanguine about the hippogryph. Yet it seemed to be the only feasible way to reach Parnassus, and Parnassus seemed to be the only route clear of their present predicament. So if she had to conquer Parnassus to get her child safely back, she would do it, "This time Grundy is right," Irene agreed reluctantly. "They must come along."[/quopte]

That's when Zora arrives. She has some kind of scale with her. She holds it out to Irene, but Irene has no particular understanding of it. Irene explains that the zombie is an ally and will come with them. Grundy suggests that Zora can ride Xap, and Xanthippe is finally convinced. For some reason.

[quote]"Which three seeds do you want?" Irene inquired as she and Grundy mounted Chem.

"The seeds of Doubt, Dissension, and War," the old witch said with gusto.

(Pun Count: 109) Xap takes off, and Zora nearly falls, until she grabs Xavier. Grundy and Irene ride Chem under him. Chem is impressed by Xap's strength. They head on southeast, and Chem asks if Grundy and Irene noticed the significance of Zora's find: a dragon scale. A scale, specifically, from the Gap Dragon. So clearly Zora can help them even if they abandon the quest - but they decide not to, just in case. Even if they worry about what'll happen if they give the seeds to Xanthippe.

quote:

Irene nodded reluctant agreement. She had consented to fetch the seeds for Xanthippe, and she always honored her agreements, even when she regretted them. Her father King Trent had taught her the importance of that.

Pun Count: 109 by the end of Chapter 6.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 22:36

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 7: back to Ivy, and a reveal that in any other writer's hands would probably be saved for something not so, uh, off-handed.

quote:

Ivy was a little Sorceress, though not yet recognized as such. Her magic talent was one of the select few that extended beyond the normal limits and had ramifications that would not have been credible anywhere except in Xanth. This was the gift of the Demon X(A/N)[superth[/super], whose enormous magic permeated the Land of Xanth, though the Demon had no interest in the affairs of Xanth. At the behest of Chem's mother Cherie Centaur, the Demon had bequeathed to the descendants of Bink and his wife Chameleon the status of Magicians. Thus, their son Dor was a Magician, destined from birth to become King of Xanth, and their granddaughter Ivy was another, similarly destined. However, the Demon had not bothered to inform anyone of this, allowing each person to find out in due course.

Throughout the volatile history of Xanth, it had always been awkward to mess with Magicians. The hag Xanthippe should have realized this, but she was out of touch with events and did not know with whom she was messing; she would surely pay a price.

Ivy had been trapped by the thyme and held helpless by its timelessness. There were only three ways to escape this trap: to suffer a general holocaust that destroyed the entire region, to be freed by the witch, or to wait for the century plant to bloom. The holocaust was not advisable, for it would destroy Ivy and Stanley, along with the thyme and much of the rest of Xanth and part of Mundania, too. As for the witch, she was not about to free the child before obtaining one feather and three potent seeds, so that wasn't a worthwhile prospect either, because the chances of her obtaining those artifacts were small. And the century plant still had ninety-three years to go before it bloomed.

But Ivy was a Sorceress, which was a sexist definition of a female Magician. Her power was her ability to intensify the qualities of things about her. Thus, though she was ensorcelled by the thyme, she also acted upon it in her curious fashion. The timelessness of thyme became concentrated to an extraordinary degree--and this affected the century plant in which it rested. The century plant thought it was aging at the rate of fifty-two weeks per year, give or take a day or so; or, failing that, at twelve months per year. But the intensification of time near the thyme warped and curved the environment in a manner that possibly only a brilliant Mundane expert might theorize about, and now the century plant was actually aging at the rate of one year per minute.

Thus, in just ninety-three minutes from the time Ivy touched the thyme and fell into its power, the thyme fell into her power. The century plant completed its cycle and bloomed. It shot up a central stalk which branched and flowered. The stalk sprouted right under the thyme, for that was the center of the plant. The witch had put the thyme there because she knew it would not be disturbed for a hundred years, by which time she would no longer be concerned with it--and indeed, it had been all right for the first seven years. Thyme was very important to a person as old as Xanthippe.

Now the flower-stalk ascended, carrying the thyme up with it. The stalk didn't bother with the entranced girl and dragon, who were extraneous to its design. Thus, in due course, the contact between thyme, girl, and dragon was broken. It was a small thyme plant, and its range was limited; this was perhaps fortunate, for otherwise all of Xanth and a smidgeon of Mundania would have experienced the acceleration of time, and that would have been a complication of another nature. When the contact ceased, so did the spell of timelessness.

Ivy and Stanley woke together. They did not yawn and stretch, as they had not been asleep. To them it seemed that no time had passed. They had not aged even ninety-three minutes, since the thyme did not affect all things identically, especially not Sorceresses and their companions. They didn't notice how the sun had jumped an hour and a half ahead in the sky, for it happened to be behind a cloud at the moment.

Ivy is annoyed that the golden disk shot up out of her reach, but Stanley can't pull it down.

quote:

"Oh, never mind, Stanley," Ivy said, disgruntled. "I didn't really want it anyway." This was known as the sour grape ploy, and it was adequate for the occasion. "I'm tired of these big trees; let's go back down to the ground."

They head onwards, stopping to get a snack, and then look out at the ground from the pagean-tree. However, it is far too hard to climb down.

quote:

But Ivy remained a reasonably smart child, just about as smart as she thought she should be, and she soon came up with a notion. "We must call for help. Someone always comes when a damsel calls for help." Someone always had come before, at any rate. "A Night in Shiny Armor, I think."

(Pun Count: 110)

quote:

Stanley wasn't sure about this, but since his specialty was not rescues, he let Ivy handle it.

Ivy took a deep, small breath and screamed: "HELP!"

In a moment something stirred below. It was a person, obviously coming to the rescue. Ivy was delighted.

She peered down, favorably disposed toward her benefactor, whoever or whatever he might be. Sure enough, the Night was a handsome young man with an intelligent face. He seemed to have left his shining armor behind, but perhaps it had been too hot for this warm weather; that didn't matter. She fell instantly in love with him, for this was what rescued damsels in the company of dragons did.

Now it was time for introductions. These things had to be done according to protocol. "Hello, Night-out-of-Armor, what's your name?" she called.

The rescuer looked up. "Hugo," he said after a pause for reflection.

"I'm Ivy. This is Stanley. He's a dragon," she said, completing the formula. "Help get us down, handsome."

Hugo pondered again. The truth was, he had never been considered a bright boy, and certainly not a handsome one, so he wasn't certain what this meant. He looked down at his clothes, which were dirty and ragged. But somehow they didn't seem as disreputable as expected. What he didn't realize was that Ivy's talent was working on him already. She considered anyone who came to rescue her to be a model of intellect and appearance and courage, by definition, so he was assuming these attributes, like them or not.

Indeed, his dull wit was brightening and beginning to function as never before. He needed to help them get down. What was the best strategy? A light bulb appeared above his head, shining its light all about before fading out. "Something to fall on," he said. "Something soft. Like a pile of squishy fruit!"

(Pun Count: 111) Ivy doesn't like squishy fruit, however. (Neither does Hugo, but it's all he can conjure.) However, he spots a bed bug and hauls it over, allowing Ivy to jump down onto it, followed by Stanley, who knocks a scale off doing so. Hugo is rather bothered by the dragon, and Stanley doesn't want a rival for Ivy's attention. Hugo prepares to summon a squishy pineapple to throw. (PUn Count: 112)

quote:

Fortunately, in the way of women of any age, Ivy realized there was a problem. She acted with instinctive finesse to alleviate it. "Don't quarrel!" she cried. "You two must get along together, for you are both my friends. Hugo is my boyfriend--" At this, Hugo was freshly startled. "And Stanley is my Dragon friend. So you're friends to each other, too."

Neither boy nor dragon was quite certain of the logic--but this, too, was typical of such situations. Ivy wanted it that way and she perceived them to be friends, so that aspect of their psychology was enhanced, and they were friends. It would not be fair to say it was a completely tranquil friendship, but it would do. Sorcery, as always, was a marvelous thing.

"Now we must go home," Ivy decided. "Where are your folks, Hugo?" She had never been to Humfrey's castle and indeed did not know Hugo was the son of the famous Magician of Xanth.

Hugo considered. "My father's a big baby, and my mother's face turns people to stone," he announced.

"Mine too," Ivy agreed. "Especially when I've been bad. Where's your home?"

Hugo pondered again. He wasn't used to being as smart as this, so it took some reorientation. He did have a fair sense of direction, when he thought to use it. "That way," he said, pointing roughly northeast.

"Okay. We'll go that way." Ivy faced northeast, getting it set in her mind. She had not thought to ask how far it was. It did not occur to any of them that they would have been better off proceeding west to Castle Zombie.

They head off, into a dark part of the forest. However, Ivy is now hungry. Hugo offers to summon fresh fruit, but he warns Ivy that his fruit isn't very good. Ivy refuses to believ eit, because she believes Hugo is handsome, wonderful and talented. Hugo summons an apple, and is shocked to find that it isn't rotting. Ivy bites into it, and it's good. Hugo summons a banana, which likewise turns out much better than expected and is eaten by Stanley. He then summons a plum for himself.

quote:

Hugo conjured a plum, taking courage. It seemed as good as the other fruit. He nerved himself and took a small bite. The fruit was juicy and tasty. "I can't understand it," he said. "Usually my fruit is as rotten as a zombie."

"Zombies are fun," Ivy said. "They know all kinds of games, like hide-in-the-grave and yuch-in-the-box."

Hugo hadn't thought of it quite that way before, but realized it was true.

"You're a good conjurer," Ivy continued confidently. And of course, in her presence, he was. His talent had been enhanced into competence.

After that, reveling in his newfound power, Hugo conjured fruit freely, so that all of them could feast. He produced a whole pile of beefsteak tomatoes for the dragon, as Stanley preferred meat when he could get it. For the first time in his life, Hugo felt competent.

(Pun Count: 113) They head off again, if slowly.

quote:

Ivy's mind wandered, as there certainly wasn't much for it to do around here. She thought of her nice room in Castle Roogna, with the magic tapestry that showed scenes of the fabulous history of Xanth. She thought of the nice cherry trees of the castle orchard, with the exploding red fruits. She thought of the friendly ghosts of the castle. She did not think of Millie as a ghost, for Millie had returned to life long before Ivy was born, but fun-loving Jordan was still there. Jordan had helped save Xanth from the NextWave, she had been told, so he was now in excellent repute and was sometimes allowed to baby-sit her when her folks were out. It was amazing how much more interesting home became when she was far away from it!

Ivy paused in her thoughts. Was that the ghost-centaur she had glimpsed? Maybe not, since there was no sign of it now. But Hugo paused too. "Hey--Imbri's here!" he exclaimed.

"Who?"

"The day mare. She brings me daydreams all the time, back home."

"Is she a centaur?"

"No, she's a horse, of course. A mythical animal with the front end of a sea horse and the hind end of a centaur. She used to be a night mare, and would carry bad dreams to sleepers. But now she is a day mare and she brings good daydreams. I like her because she visits me a lot when I'm lonely and she never says anything bad to me--to clean up my room or wash behind my ears. But I didn't think she could find me out here in the jungle."

(Pun Count: 114)

quote:

"Oh, I guess it was me she found. Can we ride her?"

"No, dummy. She's a phantom horse."

Ivy had not heard the term "dummy" before, as it was not used in her home, and she took it to be an endearment because that was the kind of term Nights in Shiny Armor used on rescued damsels. She formed half a flush of pleasure. "Can she tell our folks where we are?"

"My father, maybe. He can talk to mares when he uses a spell. But he's a baby."

"Oh." Ivy didn't quite understand this figure of speech, so she ignored it.

"But I can talk to her a little, because she brings me so many dreams. Sometimes I spend whole days alone in my room, and Imbri keeps me company. She's a great companion."

Imbri is unable to help them, but does warn them that something awful is ahead. Stanley can protect them, however.

quote:

They went on. Sure enough, something awful appeared. At first Ivy thought it was the monster under the bed, but its hands weren't big, horny, or callused, so it couldn't be that. It had multiple bug-legs and wings and feelers, and a huge, horrible mask of a face.

"A bugbear!" Hugo cried, appalled.

(Pun Count: 115) The bugbear specializes in snatching children, and so isn't very large. Ivy screams, terrified, and Hugo hurls a tomato at the bugbear uselessly. He tries again. Stanley blasts it with steam, melting the bugbear's face and forcing it to run away.

quote:

"Oh, Stanley, you're so wonderful!" Ivy exclaimed, hugging his neck. She polished up the pedestal, which was higher and prettier now, though still invisible. The dragon discovered again that he liked getting hugged by a cute little girl, and the pedestal was actually a pretty comfortable place to rest on his laurels. He made a low, purring growl. It was fun saving damsels from bug-eyed monsters.

Hugo was not entirely satisfied, however. He felt that more attention was being lavished on Stanley than the dragon warranted. In fact, he was a mite jealous, which was odd, because it was the dragon who was green.

(Pun Count: 116) The jungle starts to thin out, and everyone is getting hot and tired. They find some mist, which gets everyone rather wet, but Stanley enjoys it. Ivy decides it's time to stop and rest.

quote:

But they were not fated to rest long. There was something in the mist behind them, and it was not pleasant. They couldn't see it, or hear it, yet they were aware of it. Stanley fired a jet of steam back in its direction, but with no effect. The problem with steam was that its range was limited; if a thing was out of sight, it was also out of reach.

Then thunder rumbled, increasing their nervousness. Ivy and Stanley were not safely ensconced in the coven-tree this time; they could get wet. That bothered Ivy more than it did Stanley.

Ivy gets scared, and they start to flee. They break out of the mist, which turns out to be a sunken cloud, but other clouds are all around. One of the clouds forms a face and crown, and demands to know who they are, using Imbri to translate. Ivy introduces herself, and the cloud claims to be the King of Clouds, demanding abject obeisance. Ivy has no idea what that means, but apparently looking down and poking the ground with a foot counts.

quote:

"That's better," the centaur said. "The cloud sees you are bowing and/or curtseying. He says he is his Majesty Cumulo-Fracto-Nimbus, the Lord of the Air. He says you remind him of someone he doesn't like--a female with green hair."

Ivy realized that would be her mother Irene. She was about to ask where the cloud had seen her, but Hugo spoke first. "Aw, Fracto's just a bit of scud," he said depreciatingly.

The cloud heard that, and evidently needed no translation. He swelled up and turned purply-black. Lightning speared out of his Majesty's nose, followed by a belch of thunder and a smattering of rain-spittle. Hugo had to jump to avoid being scorched. It seemed clouds were sensitive about name calling.

"How dare you refer to the Lord of the Air as 'scud'!" the dream centaur translated. "He wants you to know he hails from a long and foggy line of lofty meteorological effects, from Cirrus through Stratus. His relatives process the water that grows all the plants of Xanth and fills all the lakes! He advises you that, without his kind, the whole land would be a dust bowl "How dare you refer to the Lord of the Air as 'scud'!" the dream centaur translated. "He wants you to know he hails from a long and foggy line of lofty meteorological effects, from Cirrus through Stratus. His relatives process the water that grows all the plants of Xanth and fills all the lakes! He advises you that, without his kind, the whole land would be a dust bowl

(Pun Count: 117)

quote:

"Dunderhead," Hugo agreed, with uncommon wit. Nights were noted for that.

(Pun Count: 118) This gets the cloud very, very mad.

quote:

"Oh, now Hugo's done it," the dream centaur said. "The King of Clouds is very volatile and tempest-headed. Flee before he strikes!"

"But there's more thunder down there!" Ivy protested, looking at the roiling layer of fog below.

The Fracto-King shaped himself up enough to take good aim at Hugo. Now he looked like a towering anvil. But before he could hammer out a devastating thunderbolt, Stanley stepped forward and shot a fierce jet of steam into the spongy nether region.

(Pun Count: 119) Stanley steams at the cloud, but it just makes it bigger. Hugo, however, summons a watermelon and hurls it. Fracto recoils before realizing it's just a fruit. When the watermelon breaks, the water just strengthens him. Ivy suggests a pineapple. Hugo creates one, hurling it at Fracto's mouth. He hits it with lightning and it explodes, blowing him apart. However, Fracto will reform even worse in a few minutes.

quote:

"Conjure some fresh cherry bombs!" Ivy cried to Hugo. "We'll beat a strategic retreat!" She almost surprised herself with that word "strategic"; it had been beyond her comprehension before, though she had heard her father use it when discussing the ancient War of the NextWave, which had happened two years before she was born. But now she was in a battle situation, and the meaning of the term was manifesting clearly enough.

(Pun Count: 120)

quote:

"Gotcha," the boy agreed, with the excellent grammar of the typical Night. A huge bunch of cherries appeared, a double handful. He flipped one cherry at the northeast side of the island, and when the bomb exploded, the layer of cloud there was disrupted. It started closing in again immediately, but obviously the fight had been temporarily knocked out of it.

They keep this up until Fracto gives up and goes away.

quote:

Ivy was thrilled by the victory. "You defeated Fracto!" she exclaimed. "Oh, let me award you, Hugo!" She flung her arms about him and planted a fat kiss on his left ear, in the way she had. She might have had her terminology a trifle confused, but the boy was quite satisfied with his award. It was the first such thing he had ever earned. He began, almost, to believe that he might be worthwhile.

Stanley might have had a different opinion, and his pedestal seemed somewhat cramped, but he was so glad to get away from the clouds that he didn't bother to develop that opinion. He did rather like the cherries; they were his kind of fruit. The pineapple, too; that had been a real blast!

They continued on through the valley. But the jungle remained thick with recognizable menaces like tangle trees and hanging vines--an unfortunate animal caught in one of the latter was not a pretty sight--and unrecognizable ones like sections of ground that were suspiciously still. The shadows were lengthening, where they showed at all. It was obvious the three of them needed a safe place to spend the night.

(Pun Count: 121) Stanley finds a scent, leading them to a large cave. They make a nest in there...and in the middle of the night, they are awakened by an arriving monster, which is eating a dead animal. They are in its lair. It goes to sleep in front of the cave entrance, trapping them in the cave until dawn, when it will surely notice them.

Pun Count: 121 by the end of Chapter 7.

# ? Aug 20, 2013 05:11

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

The tendency of Xanthians to swiftly resort to insults when meeting neutral parties that could harm them resurfaces once again.

# ? Aug 20, 2013 07:42

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 8: back to Irene.

quote:

They traveled southeast into the depths of Unknown Xanth. Chem was delighted, for it was her personal mission to map all of the peninsula she could find, especially what had never before been recorded. Periodically she projected her magic map, adding the new features--and marking their progress with a neat, black, dotted line.

Grundy, true to his fashion, irritated her by finding minor fault with the details. "Your stupid line-dots are covering up key features," he said, pointing to a section of the line. "There's a tiger lily squished under this dot!" He pointed to one of them.

(Pun Count: 122) They continue to follow Xap.

quote:

"Hey, that's nice," Grundy said, reaching out to grab a small flower from a plant growing on a close bank.

"Don't touch it!" Irene warned.

Naturally the golem touched it anyway.

"Eeeek!" the flower shrieked piercingly, wrenching itself away.

Startled, Grundy looked back at the protesting flower. "What was that?"

"I told you not to touch that touch-me-not," Irene said complacently. "They are delicate plants, and don't like to be handled by clumsy oafs."

(Pun Count: 123) Onwards!

quote:

They continued on through a field of creature plants, generally harmless but sometimes startling. Duckweed quacked, an alligator pear ground its teeth at them--naturally it had two jaws for the purpose, an upper and a lower, making the pair--a windmill palm rotated its great blade-leaves, causing wind to gust past them, a pig lily oinked, a pussy-foot crept away on little fog-feet, fish grass swam away, several toad plants croaked with great displays of mortal agony, and a money plant waved green papery leaves at them. Then the air was filled with the frozen petals from a giant snowflake plant; the petals settled in a maidenhair tree, much to her annoyance. She took a brush from a bottle-brush plant and brushed off the snow, then plucked a powder-puff to restore her complexion.

(Pun Count: 136)

quote:

Chem, distracted by the novel plants, stumbled against a rock. Fortunately, it was a sham-rock, so her hoof wasn't hurt. A real rock would have been much worse. A running myrtle, spooked by the noise, ran off. A nearby punk tree laughed, making the sound by cracking its wooden knuckles and creaking its limbs.

(Pun Count: 139) Yeah, this isn't going to stop any time soon.

quote:

A short distance away, a pencil tree was making busy notes on a paper plant. Irene smiled; apparently to these plants, the sight of a centaur, woman, and golem was worthy of note. The visitors were as strange to the plants as the plants were to the visitors. But notes weren't really necessary, as there were several forget-me-not flowers around to remember.

(Pun Count: 142)

quote:

Near the edge of the field, a spider lily was hot in pursuit of a butterfly flower, while silver bells rang a warning. That startled a zebra plant who was grazing on some unlucky clover. Chicken corn squawked as the zebra ran past, and a curiosity plant craned its stem to see what was going on.

(Pun Count: 149) Irene decides they must be near the Tree of Seeds, with all this stuff around.

quote:

As they re-entered the deeper jungle, Grundy reached for a feather fern, surely intending some ticklish mischief with it, but a fan palm fanned it aside. The golem slapped at the palm, but it drew back, closing its fingers about itself, and all Grundy struck was a section of a neighboring crown-of-thorns. That plant dropped its thorny crown on the golem's head. What the golem said as he wrenched the prickly crown off was not comprehensible, since it was in plant language, but a bleeding heart vine blushed, a trumpet lily sounded a retreat, an artillery plant fired off a salute, and a never-never plant wilted.

(Pun Count: 156) They stop for lunch.

quote:

Irene grew a custard-apple plant, a honey plant, and a swisscheese plant for Xavier, Chem, and herself; a hot red pepper for Xap; and a genuine has-bean for Grundy.

(Pun Count: 159) They decide to make camp for a while. Irene has a sudden vision of Ivy, lying sick at the base of a cactus. However, it can't be Ivy, as the ivy plant remains healthy. Xavier tells her that it's just the fetch.

quote:

"Naw. It's when you see a live person, only you see him dead. Maw likes the fetch; it suits her sense of humor."

The fetch always shows a living person.

quote:

"I don't like the fetch," Xavier confessed. "It used to be death to see it, in the old days when Xanth was new; now it's just bad luck. Maw likes bad luck, but I don't."

Irene glanced sidelong at the handsome young man, liking him better despite his backwardness; "You don't get along with your mother?"

"Oh, I get along. She tells me what to do, and I do it, so she don't use the eye on me. But I'd rather fly."

Irene could appreciate why. Any normal person would seek an excuse to spend time away from such a witch. "Thank you for the information about the fetch," she told him. "It's a great relief to me."

"Well, you're a pretty gal, real pretty, even if Maw does say so," he said, as if that related.

Irene considered the ramifications of that minor comment before responding. His mother the witch had wanted to match the two of them, and both Xavier and Irene herself had resisted. So he had complimented her, despite the negative phrasing. She rather liked, at the age of twenty-eight, being called a "pretty gal." Her days of girlhood were long past, and sometimes she missed them. She had been a showoff and a tease a dozen years ago, and though it embarrassed her to remember it, she had to admit it had been fun. So if someone saw her as that sort now, she was not really displeased. Even if he was an ignorant lout and she was a devoted wife to her distant husband and mother of a precious child. So she behaved recklessly and returned the favor. "And you're a handsome lad."

"Aw, don't start on that mush stuff," he said, disgusted. Irene smiled privately. Xavier was truly a boy at heart! The witch must really have sheltered him from life.

Grundy chuckled, though theoretically he had not been listening.

Xavier grimaced. "Maybe I better clear up a misunderstanding," he said. "I don't need no help from Maw to figure out what to do with a nymph, when it comes to that. It's just that something like marriage is too important to be done offhandedly. I aim to make my own choice of women--and when I do, it'll be forever. Maw don't understand that; maybe you do."

Irene appraised him again. He made a good deal more sense than she had thought him capable of. "Yes, perfectly," she agreed. "I wish you well."

"And the same goes for Xap. He knows his own mind; he just hasn't found no fem-gryph he likes yet."

Irene didn't comment; she was satisfied to let it stand exactly at that. It was not, after all, so bad traveling with this pair of males.

She grew a nice tree house and some cushion cactus for bedding--that kind had spines so soft they hardly even tickled--and swept out the house with some broom she sprouted for the purpose. Xavier watched her at work with open admiration. "You sure are good at that," he exclaimed.

(Pun Count: 162) Xavier's talent is to zap things.

quote:

"Xap? Your hippogryph?"

"Not Xap. Zap. With a Z-snore sound."

Irene couldn't distinguish the distinction of pronunciation but concluded that one was the animal, the other an action. "You zap things," she repeated.

(Pun Count: 163) It's some kind of weapon talent.

quote:

"I guess so." He looked about. "See that cobra plant getting ready to strike the Filly's leg?"

(Pun Count: 164)

quote:

Irene looked, startled. Sure enough, the plant was rearing its flattened stem, with two thorn-fangs glistening from its flower. When a cobra plant spread such a cape, the prudent person vacated the region quickly. But Chem was in dialogue with Xap, Grundy translating. Chem wanted to determine a good mapable route to Parnassus, so that the mountain would no longer be unattainable. She did not see the dangerous plant, and Irene was afraid to call out to her for fear that would trigger the strike. It was a delicate situation. "I see it," she murmured.

Xavier pointed his right forefinger. Something shot out from it at about the speed of light, possibly a little faster, and zapped right through the lifted cobra head. The plant hissed and expired, bleeding poisonous sap.

"Why--" Irene said, astonished. "You can kill with that!"

"Oh, sure. Anything, any time. But I don't like to hurt creatures. I mean, they got feelings and things, same as I do. So I just go fly with Xap and I zap at the clouds. It don't hurt them none, you see, and it sharpens my aim. That's fun. 'Course, there's this one cloud. King Fracto, who don't like it; he zaps back with lightning jags. Xap lost some tail feathers once--well, he don't have tail feathers, but same place. Fracto's always looking for a fight."

"I think I've met him," Irene said, remembering the cloud she had encountered on the way to the Good Magician's castle. "He has a bad attitude."

"I don't mind zapping Fracto. But I wouldn't zap a bird."

Or a person, she trusted. "That's very good, Xavier," she said carefully. "Certainly you don't want to hurt any friendly creatures."

He looked at her more squarely. "Gee, you sure are pretty, miss. You got a shape on you like a nymph."

And he had told her he knew what to do with a nymph. It seemed that, though he resisted his mother's influence and was determined to make up his own mind, that mind had not yet excluded Irene from consideration. She could not afford to have his interest fix on her in that manner. Even if he were more innocent than he claimed, it was a fact that innocent youths did not necessarily remain so indefinitely. "I'm an old married woman, looking for her child," she said quickly.

"Oh, sure, you'll get the kid back safe," he agreed encouragingly. "Too bad Maw caught you, the way she does everyone, or you'd probably have found the tot by now."

Very likely true, Irene reflected ruefully. The distractions of this quest to Parnassus had blunted her concern somewhat, for immediacies always came first, but she knew she could never really rest until Ivy was safe again.

What she had learned about Xavier was important, too. Before this conversation, it had not occurred to her that this backwoods hick could be dangerous. He was a powerful man, his talent was deadly, and his steed was one of the most formidable creatures of Xanth. If he had shared his mother's temperament, or if for any reason he turned against Irene--She had a fine line to walk. She could not afford to have Xavier become either too friendly or too unfriendly. It would be best if he and Xap flew elsewhere, as soon as Parnassus was reached.

Chem is going to go scouting with Xap. This confuses Irene.

quote:

An amazing notion pushed at Irene's consciousness as she glanced at the powerful bird-horse standing a short distance away. Xap was as fine a specimen of creature as she had seen in a long time, all muscle and feather and gleam. Could Chem want some private time with the hippogryph? Impossible! And yet centaurs were crossbreeds, and so were hippogryphs, with a common heritage through their equine ancestry. Chem had found no suitable male centaur, and Xap had found no female of his kind. Could Chem want a foal who could fly?

Irene shifted her thoughts. It was none of her business. "I'm sure we can get along here until you return. We do need to find a good route to Parnassus." Among other things, she added silently.

[...]

Irene shook her head. "And I thought I understood centaurs!" she exclaimed to herself. It seemed the witch's notion of breeding had fallen on fertile soil, after all.

Xavier stared after the two. "Well, I'll be jiggered! She's grounded him! I thought he didn't go for landbound fillies!"

"Never underestimate the power of a filly," Irene murmured. She remained astonished at this development, but cautioned herself that it was mostly conjecture. She could be misreading it all.

She wished Chem well, in whatever the centaur had in mind, but was now doubly nervous about her own situation. She was virtually alone with a man who could zap holes in creatures. Of course she could grow plants to protect herself--but she didn't want to do that unless she was quite certain of the need. The manner in which Xavier had zapped the cobra plant unnerved her, now that she thought about it. She would not be able to handle him with mere pussy-willows!

Irene continues preparing the camp.

quote:

The tree house was almost complete. It would have been done before now if Ivy had been here, Irene knew. Her power was diminishing in the absence of her daughter. The loss would not be critical, but it was noticeable. She had allowed enough time, for the daylight had not yet faded. She would plant some sword ferns around the base of the tree to prevent intrusion by nocturnal predators; the fern would not grow any more by night, but wouldn't need to; any foot stepping on it would get slashed.

(Pun Count: 165)

quote:

Now there was the problem of sleeping. She hadn't thought of it before, being concerned with her mission and the unusual social interactions this party was experiencing. She had once supposed that the trip to Parnassus could be completed in a few hours, perhaps a day. A foolish notion, obviously. So they had to camp along the way, which was routine. There was room for four in the tree house. But when the four were a woman, a golem, a zombie, and a strange man...

She could take precautions, however. She climbed into the tree house and planted a monkey-puzzle tree. She knew what its grown configuration would be, so she would be able to crawl in and out of its cage-like puzzle readily, while others would not. She sprouted a few saw ferns at the entrance; they would not saw at her, but would at others, and she would have a fairly secure, fairly private chamber within the tree house, without having to make an issue of it. A lot could be done with plants when a person had the talent, as well as a little foresight.

(Pun Count: 166)

quote:

But oh, she wished she were back with Dor and Ivy at Castle Roogna! She worried how Dor was getting along without her. He really didn't have much of a head for governing; few men did, aside from her father. That was why women were essential.

Well, that was hardly the only reason women were necessary! Nonetheless, men had their uses, too.

They hear some kind of terrible noise, and are unsure what it is. It's getting dark, though, so Irene can't really use her talent.

quote:

Also, until she knew the precise nature of the threat, she could not select an appropriate seed--and she feared by then it would be too late. "I think we'll have to depend on Xavier," she said reluctantly. It wasn't that she doubted the young man's competence or courage; she just didn't like the notion of having to depend on any man other than her husband for anything.

The noise is some kind of shrieking women.

quote:

The last of the light showed their faces. "They're real dogs," Grundy said.

He was speaking literally. The faces of the three creatures were strongly canine, with projecting snouts, furry ears, and bloodshot eyes on the sides of their heads. Long, red tongues licked canine teeth between screeches, as if moistening them for the next effort.

(Pun Count: 167)

quote:

But that was not the oddest thing about these women. Their hair twisted in coils like the bodies of snakes, their exposed arms and legs were so dark that they reflected almost no light at all, and their cloaks turned out to be not cloth but huge, batlike wings. Each female carried a kind of stick with several thongs dangling from it.

The women screech at them, saying they will scourge the party for their sins.

quote:

"Innocent travelers!" the canine crone screeched, sounding worse than a harpy. "You, girl who was such a trial to your lonely mother the Sorceress for nigh thirty years and now neglects her entirely! What illusion can she spin to shield her own awareness from the serpent's tooth of your ungratefulness? With what solace shall she die, away and alone, while her daughter murders her with uncaring?"

Irene rocked back, scourged indeed. This was the last kind of attack she had expected, and it was cruelly accurate. She had been neglecting her aging mother! How could this vile dog woman know?

"Don't talk to the lady like that, you miserable spook!" Xavier said angrily. "She asked you a question! Who the hades are you?" He lifted his finger, ready to zap the crone.

"And you, you sniveling excuse for a son!" the second crone screeched, advancing on him with her scourge raised. "When did you ever obey your mother the witch without forcing her to threaten to compel you with her eye, a thing you knew she did not want to do? All these one-score years she labored to raise you right--what thanks did you ever give, you careless and callous lout? When she sacrificed her very pride to put another woman in your worthless life, to cause you to marry and settle down and become a useful person, what did you do? How deep is her sorrow, while you neglect all obligations of responsible life to go flying7"

Xavier stepped back in the way Irene had, his face frozen in shock and guilt, his zap-finger stifled. The hag had scored on him as readily as her sister crone had scored on Irene. How did they know so much?

But now Grundy spoke up. "You talk pretty big, you bundles of bags!" the golem cried. "But I know you! You are the Furies, trying to blame everyone you meet for parricide--for killing his parents! But you can't get me! I know your names--Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera! You are the daughters of Mother Earth, as old as the world. You call yourselves the kindly ones, but it's a lie! You're the vicious ones! You're creatures of vengeance and ill-conceived retribution. But you can't blame me for neglecting my mother, because I never had a mother! I was made from sticks and cloth, animated by magic, and rendered to life by greater magic. What do you say to that, dogface?"

So that was the story on these wretched harridans! They were the fabled Furies! Irene had thought Xavier would be the one to defend the party, but it turned out to be Grundy, with his knowledge of the nature of these women.

The third Fury stepped forward, threatening with her scourge. "Golem, do you think that because you were made, not born, you owe nothing to your creator? What were your sticks and rags and string before the Good Magician animated you? What thanks did you ever give him for that inestimable service of awareness? Did you not flee the moment you woke, refusing to serve the purpose for which you were made? Did your neglect not cause him to lose several valuable days devising alternate means to converse with animals and plants so he could complete his project? Did you not return only after you discovered there were no others like you, so you wanted to become real? Only then did you return to serve, in exchange for the Magician's Answer, which he never owed you in the first place but gave out of the generosity of his heart! And did you care? Did you care for anyone or anything except yourself? How many times did you abuse the Magician, calling him gnome? How many other innocent people has your foul rag mouth wronged? How many times has your perjury of translation caused mischief to those who trusted you? Where were you when the Good Magician needed you to warn the Gap Dragon away, to avoid the disaster of the Youth elixir? He helped you in your infancy of awareness; what favor did you return in his own infancy? Should he not have reason to curse the day he made you and gave you consciousness and self-determination? 0, cower, wretch, for surely the scourge must fall most heavily on your deserving hide!"

Indeed, Grundy did cower, for the Fury had bested him with the terrible justice of her accusation. These were three awful creatures of retribution, their words as devastating as their weapons. They bore down on the three chastened people, their deadly scourges ready to draw more than physical blood. Irene knew now that none of her plants could have stopped these terrible old women, whose voices echoed the complaints of all neglected parents, and that Xavier's zapping would not have touched them. Even Grundy's sarcastic tongue was powerless here! She had never heard the golem so accurately set back! Yet Xavier had been cowed, too, and she herself humbled.

All three of them were retreating now--Irene, Xavier, and Grundy. In moments the scourges would cut into them, and somehow Irene knew those whips were poisonous. Their mere touch would draw copious blood and inflict extraordinary agony; the wounds would fester and refuse to heal, until the victims wished ardently for a clean and honest death. Now Irene remembered stories about the Furies punishing errant children; it was bad luck even to mention their names. Tisi, Alec, and Meg--the three horrors of guilt, sorrow, and suffering! And the worst of it was, Irene could not claim with any certainty that this savage retribution was wrong. She had always thought other people would and should suffer for their callousness, but had never realized that she was as guilty as they and deserved similar treatment.

She tripped over a root and fell on her back, unable to retreat any more. Tisi loomed over her, the canine snout drooling spittle, the animal breath rasping out in what seemed like a fiery fog. The black wings were half spread, and the scourge was lifted high for its devastating strike, each thong glistening hungrily for its share of blood.

Yet even worse than this physical threat was the emotional one. Irene realized that she would never get to tell her mother how important she, the Sorceress Iris, was and had always been to her daughter! Irene would never have the chance to make up for the years of neglect. This was the crudest portion of her punishment--the denial of absolution.

Oh, Iris, dear mother, forgive me! she cried in her heart as the scourge came down at her face, knowing that plea would never be heard. She no longer had even the will to turn her face aside; she was doomed.

But the scourge did not land. Startled by the reprieve, Irene looked up--and saw a shape interposed.

It was the zombie! Zora had taken the blow intended for Irene. Strips of Zora's decayed flesh were dangling, ripped off by the lash of the thongs, but it seemed the zombie hardly felt them. Zombies were always losing flesh.

Tisi looked into the rotten face of the zombie and retreated. "You are undead!" she shrieked. "I can't punish you! The poison can't hurt you, the whip can't draw your blood, the truth can't sear your mind!"

Zora went on to intercept the next Fury, Alec, catching the blow intended for Xavier. The second crone recoiled similarly, not knowing how to handle an undead person. "Even if you lived, I could not flay you!" the Fury protested. "You never neglected your parents!"

Then Zora rescued Grundy, pulling him out of the way while she absorbed Meg's blow and sacrificed more shreds of flesh. "It is wrong, it is wrong!" Meg screamed in frustration. "You have suffered more, for less reason, than any living creature! I can add nothing to it!"

But now the crones rallied, reorienting on their original targets. The zombie had caught them by surprise but could not stop them if they acted in concert.

"Ffiiee! Ffiiee!" Zora cried, losing some lip and showing extraordinary animation for her kind. Generally the emotions of zombies were as atrophied as their bodies. "Theesh nocht yyoors!" The three formidable Furies hesitated, daunted by the scolding of the undead and spiritually unsoiled woman. They had neither physical nor moral power over her.

The three drew together in a huddle, conferring in unintelligible shrieks and woofs. Then, deciding on a new strategy, the Furies turned, faced the victims, and lifted their left arms in unison, as if to hurl something. But those three left hands were empty.

"Look out!" Grundy yelled. "It's a curse! The hideous hags are going to throw a--"

The three arms descended, each making a throwing arc. Irene and Xavier hunched down, their shoulders colliding. Zora flung herself back, again interposing her body between the Furies and their victims.

Something like a wind stirred in the grass around them. Irene found herself on the ground, half embracing Xavier, with the body of the zombie against them both.

The vicious Furies had been partially foiled again. Their curse had struck Zora instead of its intended objects. But evidently one curse was all each hag could throw. In moments the three turned and departed, huddling within their wing-cloaks. This horrible siege was over.

Irene got up and dusted herself off. That had been a remarkable escape! She saw Xavier staring up at Zora as if he had never seen her before. "It--the zom--she took the strike meant for me!" he exclaimed incredulously.

"Twice," Irene agreed. "For me too. Zombies are immune to physical pain and very hard to hurt. They are undead--the revived corpses of once-living people. They're not bad folk at all, if you can bring yourself to get to know them." She was speaking for herself as much as for him. This was the second time Zora had saved her, perhaps the second and third times, if she counted the scourge and the curse as separate items.

They are all very grateful to Zora, and Xavier is angry at the man who drove her to suicide. However, she couldn't block off Grundy from the curse, and he knows what it is: misfortune. One bad thing will happen to each victim which will make them wish they were dead. And Zora will be hit twice. They invitre Zora up to the tree house, despite her claiming she doesn't need it. Zora heads up, and Xavier helps her in, since she's too weak to finish the climb.

quote:

"I never touched one of them things before," Xavier murmured, half to himself. "Not with my hands, 'Course, she was hanging on to me, riding Xap, but I just sorta tuned her out. As if she were a bag of garbage going to the dump. But now, after she took that scourge for me--if I had been hit, I guess my flesh would be dropping off and showing my bones." He shook his head. "I never had no one do me a favor I didn't do back. But how do you give back the favor of a life when--I mean, she lost her life long before I ever knew her." He clenched his fists in a frustration Irene shared. He was a decent man, facing an insoluble ethical problem. "It's not so bad, touching her. No worse than entrails from some monster I killed. Touching stuff--it really don't mean nothing. It's how you feel about it. She sure don't weigh much."

Xavier was, in his crude but honest fashion, voicing sentiments similar to those Irene had privately entertained, to her half shame. His reassessment paralleled hers. There was no prejudice in Xanth greater than that relating to zombies, and she had shared it, though she knew better. Even Millie the Ghost, who had loved a zombie for eight hundred years, until he was at last restored to his living self as the Zombie Master--even she did not permit many zombies in their castle, although zombies had built that castle and now defended it. Castle Roogna had always been defended by zombies, yet they were not permitted inside it. Nobody wanted to be close to a zombie.

But if zombies were not properly alive, neither were they properly dead. They did have feelings, loyalty, and courage, as Zora had so dramatically shown. Zora had done more, and had asked less in return, than anyone else on this odd excursion.

Irene heads to bed in the monkey-puzzle chamber, and they all camp down for the night.

Pun Count: 167 by the end of Chapter 8.

# ? Aug 20, 2013 17:50

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 9. Xap and Chem return from their night scouting.

quote:

Maybe it was her imagination, Irene thought, but in the light of dawn, Zora looked improved. The scourge gouges had filled in so that bone no longer showed, her flesh no longer hung in tatters, and her eyes seemed restored to the point where they were capable of normal vision. Even her dress was whole now, apparently renovating itself as part of the zombie process. Her hair was longer and fuller and less straggly, with some of its original fair color showing. It seemed that rest and shelter did mend a zombie somewhat.

This was the first case Irene knew of in which a zombie had become less, rather than more, rotten with the passage of time. But of course she had never before interacted this closely with a zombie for several days. What had she ever really known about them? Little more than jokes: How many zombies does it take to plant a light bulb? She could no longer remember the punch line and didn't care to; she was sure she would not find it very funny now.

(Pun Count: 168) Irene thinks that perhaps caring about Zora is what did it.

quote:

Irene's original clothes were quite dry now, so she no longer had to wear the towels or other substitutes. That improved her outlook. She grew milkweed and eggplant for breakfast, for those who wanted it. Xap and Chem were not hungry; presumably they had eaten on the run during the night.

(Pun Count: 170) Chem gives the mdirections. There are two peaks to Parnassus. On one, there are the nine Muses, the cave of the Oracle and o nthe peak, the Tree of Seeds. However, Chem seems worried about something she won't talk about. Irene is worried, too, especially with Grundy and Zora's curses. Chem explains: the Oracle's shrine is guardedb y the Python. There are also the maenads.

quote:

"The maenads. They are the wild women of wine. They dance ritually on the north slope, tearing apart and consuming any creature they catch. Once they served the god of fertile crops, but the old gods are gone now and the maenads serve no one except the Tree of Immortality, which keeps them alive and youthful."

"They sound like nymphs," Xavier remarked.

"They may be related, but their personalities are more like those of harpies or ogresses. They are predators, not prey, though they are naked and beautiful."

"I see," Irene said, frowning. She tended to be foolishly jealous of eternally young, beautiful, naked wild women. Once she herself had been--but she stifled that thought. "So wild women roam the slopes of Parnassus. We'll stay clear of them, too." For sure!

They have a path planned out. They can't fly up with Xap since the Simurgh bans all entry to Parnassus by air for anything larger than a small bird. The Simurgh is very choosy about visitors. They head off on Chem's path.

quote:

Those two semi-equines must have had quite a night of it, Irene reflected. Xap spoke only in squawks, but Chem seemed to understand him perfectly now, and he understood her. Irene remained surprised that Chem should show such interest in a non-centaur, yet human beings were non-centaurs, too, and she associated with them all the time. Was a human person any more worthy than a hippogryph person? A smart centaur certainly ought to be able to judge. But Irene suspected that Chem's dam Cherie would not entirely approve. What would the Furies have said to Chem?

They decide to avoid the north peak's Tree of Immortality. Grundy goes ahead, but is soon bitten by a small snake. Chem recognizes it as a dipsas. Grundy is now struck by an insatiable thirst. Irene goes and finds a beerbarrel tree for him, and he drinks down the beer - even more than his own mass in it, drying out the tree. Yet Grundy is still dying of thirst. The only cure available is the winespring of the maenads.

quote:

Irene dropped a seed and ordered it to grow. In a moment a water hyacinth sprouted, bursting with water. The golem grabbed its leaves and flowers and crammed them into his mouth. But plants couldn't hold him long. Already his swollen limbs looked shrunken, as if dehydrating. He had the worst of both conditions.

(Pun Count: 171) They decide to have Xap carry Xavier and Grundy to the winespring, then meet back up with them.

quote:

"There go three fairly brave and foolish males," Chem murmured as Zora mounted behind Irene.

"Let's hope we fairly sensible and timid females can complete our mission," Irene said.

They moved up the slope. Parnassus was not a smooth mountain; it was riddled with ridges, gullies, crevices, and caves, and the vegetation was odd. Strange seeds had sprouted, probably from the Tree of Seeds. There was a proliferation of paper trees and ink plants, and secretary-birds zipped among them in seemingly pointless activity. Irene wondered what natural place a community like this had in the larger scheme of Xanth, for things generally interrelated, but she could see nothing worthwhile. Parnassus seemed pretty much wrapped up in its own concerns, which hardly related to those of the world beyond.

(Pun Count: 174) They hear a hiss ahead, and find a gigantic serpent: the Python.

quote:

"I am the nemesis and the delight of females everywhere," the serpent hissed. "I made the first woman blush and feel shame for the desire I aroused in her. I will possess the last woman ever to bear a child. Bow down before me, you vulnerable creatures!"

This was more than a mere snake! Irene tried to protest, but the Python's terrible gaze transfixed her. Chem fidgeted on her hooves, caught by the same stare. There seemed to be all the sinister masculine wisdom of eternity in those huge eyes, together with all the masculine promise and threat and a desire, as insatiable as the golem's thirst, that would destroy them long before it was sated; yet neither Irene nor Chem could break the connection.

The Python slid forward sinuously, holding them with his hypnotic gaze. His pale red tongue flicked out. Soon that awful mouth would gape, showing the cruel fangs--

"Wwhaashh?" Zora asked, shedding some epiglottis, as she tended to do when expressing herself with some force. When Irene didn't answer, the zombie craned her neck to peer blankly ahead of the centaur.

Then Zora half scrambled, half slid to the ground, righted herself, and shuffled forward. She took her place in front of Chem just as the head of the Python arrived. "Ffiieee, sschnaake!" she cried.

For a moment, zombie and Python were eye to eye. Now it was the serpent who froze, for the direct gaze of an aroused zombie was a sickening thing.

Irene and Chem snapped out of their trances. The gaze of the Python had been interrupted by Zora, freeing the other two. Irene was appalled and repelled by the memory of her fascination of a moment ago, yet there had been a certain insidious appeal as well. She had not, while caught in the stare of the snake, quite wanted to break it, though she knew it meant doom. Did she have an urge for self-destruction, or was that merely part of the thing's spell?

Chem grabs Zora, and they flee as the Python thrashes about, starting a rockslide. But it will soon be after them again.

quote:

Irene knew the monster snake would soon be after them. The Python had been balked, not defeated; it was impossible for mere females to win over him. She felt in her bag of seeds, seeking something that would delay the reptile. She had a tangle tree seed, but that would take too long to grow--Ah! Here was a hedgehog plant seed. She threw it to the ground. "Grow!"

The hedgehog sprouted, sending out quills that pointed in every direction. It was like an oversized pincushion. That would be awkward to pass in any hurry!

(Pun Count: 175) However, the Python comes too fast, easily getting past it.

quote:

Hmm. She fetched out two more seeds. The first was false hops; when she sprouted it, it fragmented into a dozen miniature kangaroos who started hopping madly about. They were not real, of course; kangaroos were mythical beasts not found in Xanth. When the Python snapped at one, he encountered only leaves and stem. But this was a distraction that slowed the aggressive reptile.

(Pun Count: 176) The other seed is an alumroot. The Python devours it, but alum is an astringent, and its mouth shrinks massively, unable to open at all now beyond a pinpoint. Also, it is vomiting, since alum is an emetic. That gives them time to get Zorao nto Chem and head onwards. They wonder if that counted as Zora's curse.

quote:

"Well, now we know," Irene said. "I don't want to meet that gaze again!" There was just a smidgeon of doubt to that, though. She hated that doubt! "We'll have to find another path up the mountain. We can intercept our original route above the Python, who will be looking for us down here, so that the boys can find us."

They head onwards.

quote:

They picked their way to the alternate path. Irene planted a creeping fig seed in the path they were leaving, to fool the Python, who she knew would be recovering soon from the effects of the alum. It had been a small alumroot, not enough really to hurt the huge snake; and anyway, alum was not generally fatal. The Python's hunger would be greater than ever, because of the loss of the contents of his stomach. The fig would creep on down toward the base of the mountain, making it seem that the party had continued that way. Of course, the fig's smell would be different, but it was still worth the try; maybe the reptile didn't track by smell.

(Pun Count: 177) They discuss the Oracle and how she smells the vapors and then makes mad but true prophecies. They decide not to stop by. However, they hear screams. The maenads are pursuing their friends. And now the Python is coming back.

quote:

Plants sprouted rapidly, spreading across a fairly broad area. "What are they?" Chem asked, glancing forward and back.

"Something to distract each threat, I hope--horehounds and snake plants."

(Pun Count: 179)

quote:

Chem eyed the bristling hound-heads and snake-heads on the plants. "Aren't they as much of a threat to us as to the enemies?"

"No. Snake plants only bite snakes, and horehounds only bite--"

Now the hippogryph burst into sight, running powerfully, pursued by a crowd of naked women. They were young and healthy and, yes, nymphlike, with fine, firm legs, narrow waists, and voluptuous bosoms. But they were also wild-haired and wild-eyed, and awful imprecations spewed from their snarling red mouths. Several of them carried things that most resembled gobbets of raw flesh.

They flee, converging with Xap. The Python and Maenads attack each other, and the snake plants and horehounds increase the carnage. Grundy, meanwhile, is cured from his drink of the winespring.

quote:

"Everything was quiet until he drank," Xavier said. "Then the damsels appeared--"

"Damsels!" Irene exclaimed. "Those are bi--uh, bad women!"

"Oh, I don't know," Grundy said. "I understand wild women can be a lot of fun."

[...]

"Screaming and waving their claws," Xavier continued. "I didn't want to zap any of those fantastic creatures, they being of the gentle sex--"

"Hardly gentle!" Irene protested, watching another bleeding hunk of meat fly up above the melee.

"Like yourself," he said. "I just don't like to--"

"I'm like a maenad, a wild woman?" Irene screeched, outraged. Then she had to laugh, knowing she was reacting exactly like a maenad.

"Gentle," Xavier clarified. "And lovely." He squinted at her. "In fact, maybe Maw was right--"

"Let's get on with our mission," Irene said quickly. She should have kept her mouth shut to begin with. Xavier was really a very nice young man, and she remained privately flattered by his perception of her, but this was as far as it could ever go. She had a husband and child to return to, after all.

They get past the carnage, but now the slop is getting too steep. They find a high palace.

quote:

In a small court before it, a woman sat at a table, an open chest of books at her side. She wore a floor-length white robe and was of well-kept middle age--the kind of figure of a woman Irene hoped to be when time shoved her into that age bracket.

Irene asks for directions, and introduces the party. The woman recognizes her as queen. She is Clio, Muse of History.

quote:

"The Muse of History!" Chem exclaimed excitedly, stepping close. "The one who writes the magic texts?"

Clio inclined her head politely. "Some of them, centaur. Most recently I covered the episode of the night mare and the salvation of Xanth from the NextWave invasion. Your kind has been an excellent customer for such references, and, of course, the Good Magician."

"Not any more," Irene murmured darkly.

"He will recover in proper course; your friend will see to that," the Muse said, glancing at Zora.

"He will?" Irene asked incredulously. "But there's no fast cure for Youth--"

"But her talent compensates, you see."

Irene stared at Zora. "Her talent? But she's a--"

Clio put her hand to her lips. "Oh, my, that's in a future history text, which I have not yet completed! We have a long lead time, and sometimes I lose track. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

Chem asks about the other muses, who also live on Parnassus. They are currently resting. Chem asks for directions, but learns there is no easy way. Still, they must go. Clio fetches Thalia, Muse of Comedy and Planting. She tells Irene that Ivy is in the cave of the Cyclops. Xanthippe lost her some time ago, though she never knew it. Irene wants to head back, but decides they've come too far to stop now. The Simurgh might be able to help them. Thalia offers help, since she likes Ivy's name and Irene's talent.

quote:

It had been coincidence, since Irene had not known about this Muse. She had needed a name beginning with I that related to plants, since the baby had been a girl. Had it been a boy, they would have settled on a name beginning with D, after his father, relating to the inanimate. But it did not seem politic to make an issue of that now, and perhaps it was less coincidental than it seemed. There were few true coincidences in Xanth.

Meanwhile, why did Thalia keep referring to Ivy as a Sorceress? And what did Clio mean about saving Xanth? Irene had a nasty feeling that these were not idle fragments of news. But she was sure that she would get no clarifications merely by asking. The Muses were as much aware of the future as they were of the past, and did let slip aspects of each, but it seemed they were not supposed to leak the future to ordinary folk. "How can we get to the top of Parnassus quickly?"

Thalia considered. "Some ride a book to the heights." She indicated one of Clio's texts, which rose out of the chest and hovered in the air before them. "But this method is precarious, for no one knows which book will rise all the way."

Irene eyed the floating tome. It seemed very small and uncertain. "I don't care to trust myself to that, even if the Simurgh permits that sort of flight! I'd soon fall off."

"Most do," Thalia agreed. "They have such high hopes, then fall so low, especially when the climate is adverse. Some make it by promotion." But her too-merry smile suggested that was not a viable option either, in this instance. "Some do it by sheer luck. But the only reasonable route is that of time and persistence."

"We don't have time!" Irene protested. Thalia paced in a small circle.

"Then I suppose you will have to do it the hard way. For you, for this occasion, I think the ivy should do." She lifted the wreath from her neck and set it at the base of the cliff at the edge of the temple. "I must not employ my power for the benefit of a traveler, but you may use yours."

Irene caught on. "Grow;" she ordered the ivy. The ivy grew vigorously. The wreath sent out several shoots, and these quickly found the face of the cliff. They attached themselves to the surface of the mountain, their little suckers supporting the stems. The vines thickened and became sturdy and continued to reach up the mountain.

Xap and Chem will have to wait, but at least Chem can talk to the Muses. They decide to let Zora wait, too. Grundy will come, as will Xavier.

quote:

She remembered how she had climbed a plant over a dozen years ago, in Mundania, to help Dor use his talent in a castle. That had taken place in the days when she had been young and impetuous and foolish and fun-loving. The halcyon days, when everyone had been desperate to know what color her panties were. Now, of course, no one cared. Her youth had flown.

"Hey, doll, remember that time in Onesti when Dor was embarrassed to see your--" Grundy began, thinking to tease her.

Irene leaned over and kissed him on the top of his little head. "I remember."

The golem blanched. "I must be losing my touch," he grumbled.

Grundy has no trouble climbing, and neither does Xavier, but Irene tires. Still, she can continue, despite her vertigo. Then they reach the Tree of Seeds. The Simurgh perches on it, the size of a roc. The Simurgh is telepathic.

quote:

Neither Grundy nor Xavier was able to formulate anything. Irene was the one with the mission, and as the only woman present, she was the natural leader. She gulped and started to speak. "First, we need a fea--"

A WHAT? the monstrous bird demanded.

"A--" Irene began again.

WHO PUT YOU UP TO THIS, MORTAL WOMAN?

There was something ominous about the way the bird projected the concept "mortal"; life was not necessarily long. Abashed, Irene began: "The--"

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! THAT WITCH XANTHIPPE IS A THIEF FROM WAY BACK, ALWAYS WANTING WHAT SHE DOES NOT DESERVE.

"Hey, featherbrain, that's my mother you're insulting!" Xavier protested in the foolhardy fashion of his sex.

One gigantic and brilliant eye shifted to cover him. Xavier was obviously daunted but held his bit of ground bravely enough. He had been stung by the indictment of the Furies; now he was standing up for his mother.

YOU ASK FOR THIS, TASTY MAN? This time the accent was on "tasty."

"Well, sure," Xavier said nervously. "I never did nothing for my mother before, so it's time I--"

YOU HAVE PROFITED FROM THE LESSON OF ALECTO, the Simurgh projected. YOU WISH TO BECOME A DUTIFUL SON.

"I guess so," Xavier admitted. "I know I'm not much, and I can't say I agree with everything Maw does, but she did try to do right by me, and I reckon it ain't never too late to start. Those old crones--uh, the three Furies--they really had something to say, you know? So I--"

FILIAL RESPECT IS GOOD, EVEN WHEN THE OBJECT IS NOT WORTHY, the Simurgh projected. TO MARRY AND SETTLE DOWN IS GOOD. BUT YOUR MOTHER'S DESIGN ERRS IN ONE RESPECT: YOU MAY NOT TAKE A WOMAN WHO IS ALREADY SPOKEN FOR.

Xavier glanced at Irene, who found herself blushing for no good reason. The Simurgh could read a person's thoughts; what had it seen in Xavier's mind? The young man was taken aback. "I may not? But Maw said--"

FIND ANOTHER WOMAN.

"Uh, yes, sir. I--"

YES. MA'AM, the bird corrected him. ONLY A MALE WOULD NOT REALIZE THAT FEMALES ARE THE KEEPERS OF THE SEEDS.

"Yes, ma'am," Xavier agreed, abashed. "Some other woman."

The Simurgh gives them a feather, and asks Irene why she agreed to this and what she needs. Irene explains. The Simurgh tells her that no mortal dares possess those three seeds. Grundy asks why.

quote:

AN INTRIGUING QUESTION, the Simurgh responded. Evidently the appellation "birdbrain" didn't bother her, as her birdbrain was perhaps the most powerful brain in Xanth. POSSIBLY THE WITCH DOES DESERVE THOSE SEEDS.

She shakes her tree, allowing Irene to get the Seeds of Doubt, Dissension and War.

quote:

"Doubt," Xavier said uncertainly, handing her his seed. Its outline was vague; it was hard to tell for sure exactly what it was.

"Dissension," Grundy continued argument, carefully, passing along his seed. It had sharp spines, making it difficult to handle without getting hurt.

"And War," Irene finished warningly, fishing the third from her skirt. It resembled a mushroom-shaped cloud.

Irene puts them away. The Simurgh shakes the tree again, and offers Irene as many seeds as she can catch.

quote:

In a moment, the hail of particles was over. Dazed, Irene looked around. No seeds remained anywhere on the top of the mountain; all had rolled or slid over the edge, and somehow she knew they were forever beyond recovery. But her skirt was full. Seeds of every description rested within it. Many were tiny motes; some were like snowflakes; others were like grains of sand; others like puffs of cotton; and others like little pods. They were all colors and sizes and shapes and textures and densities. She recognized some, like chinaberry (miniature tea cups), airplant (with tiny wings and propellers), sundrop (shining brightly), gum (blowing bubbles), peacock plant (with pretty spread tails), and blue fern (unhappy expressions); but many others were unfamiliar. What was this one that looked like a pair of crossed bones, or the ones like hairpins? She would have to get them home and look them up in the Castle Roogna classification manuals before she dared grow them. What a fabulous treasure!

(Pun Count: 185)

quote:

"You should look at you!" Grundy exclaimed. "Seeds in your green hair, seeds in your slippers, seeds in your boo--" He caught her fierce glare and modified his term. "Bosom," he concluded.

Now a problem manifested. "How can I carry all these seeds?" Irene asked. "I can't let go of my skirt!" If she tried to use her hands, the skirt would fall, and the seeds would slide out. She knew she would lose any that touched the ground here; the disappearance of all the other seeds made that clear.

The Simurgh had given her a gift, but had not made it easy. She could keep only those seeds she could catch--and hold.

"I'll help you," Xavier said gallantly. He started picking seeds out of her hair and dropping them into her spread skirt. When he reached for the ones caught lower, she had to demur. "Thank you Xav, I'll get the others myself, in due course." She had enough problems without his fishing for seeds in her bosom while she stood with skirt raised, unable to free her hands. He had agreed to find another woman, but there was no sense tempting him.

Grundy was meanwhile picking the seeds off her shoes and depositing them in the dress. "Girl, you sure still got 'em!" he remarked, glancing up under her skirt. Irene glared again--and again he amended himself. "Seeds, I mean. I didn't drop a one."

Now she had most of the seeds in one place--but still couldn't use her hands. What was she to do? She couldn't abide the thought of losing any of them, not even a single seed; it might be the most valuable one of all, whatever it was. Seeds were the most important thing she knew, next to her husband and daughter; she had to save them all!

And she can't climb this way.

quote:

She sighed. The seeds came first. She took several not-too-deep breaths, then faced Xavier. "Xav, would you please undo my skirt? It's a wraparound; it unsnaps at the waist."

The young man gawked. "Oh, no miss! I wouldn't do that! The big bird told me not to--"

"Not to take up with a woman already spoken for," Irene finished. "That is excellent advice, and certainly I am spoken for, so you don't need to worry about that. Now I ask you this favor, as a friend who is going to find some other woman and therefore has no interest in me, to help me get these seeds home. To do that I must wrap them up in my skirt, and to do that I must take it off. Since my hands are not free, you and Grundy will have to help me. You must remove my skirt, and Grundy will tie it together. It is all perfectly in order." She hoped she had phrased it properly and that she was not blushing.

This was not a situation she would have cared to explain to her husband.

Xavier undoes the skirt, though he's fairly bad at it.

quote:

"Oh, sure, ma'am." The young man fumbled at her waist. He was not at all good at this; men generally weren't. "You sure got a tight--"

"Watch it," Grundy cut in, grinning.

"--snap here," Xavier finished. Unlike the golem, he had not changed his original thought. Then he got it loose and unwrapped the skirt.
Grundy whistled. "Look at that--" Again he was interrupted by Irene's warning glare. Glares could be exceedingly useful at a time like this! "Pair of ankles," he finished, somewhat lamely.

"You got a seed in your--" Xavier said. "I mean, in the band to your--the green--"

"They're called panties, yokel," Grundy said before Irene could catch him with her eye. "They've never before been seen by human eye."

"Leave the seed," Irene said evenly. "Grundy, you tie the knot." Xavier brought the free side of the skirt around to the front. She continued to hold up the sides of her basin while Xavier held the rest of her skirt, which was now a more or less oblong swatch of cloth.

Grundy climbed up on the bag formed as they folded the skirt up and over the seeds, and tied it in a good topknot. The golem had originally been made of wood and cloth knotted together, so he understood the process. His knot would hold. The bag was complete, and not a seed had been lost.

Now Irene picked the seed out of her panty band. "Still wearing that same pair, I see," Grundy remarked innocently. "Aren't they getting a little old by now?"

"My panties match my complexion," Irene said with what she hoped was humor. She was not about to explain the niceties of maintaining changes of clothing. It had been bad enough when her present clothes had gotten soaked during the night, forcing her to grow substitutes while these dried. She did not normally wear her underclothing several days in a row. The golem knew that; he just wanted to force her to talk about titillating things in the presence of Xavier. There were levels and levels of Grundy's mischief. "Now let's get on down the mountain." She turned to face the trunk of the main ivy plant, clinging to the side of the knoll.

Of course, she now has to carry the bag in one hand, and still can't climb. Xavier offers to carry it - but even he can't handle it alone. Grundy realizes they can climb, pass it over, and continue as a chain.

quote:

"Yeah, sure, that'll work!" Xavier agreed, removing his gaze from Irene's torso. He clambered over the brink and grasped the vines, readily lowering himself. When his head was just below the brink, he hooked his left hand firmly in the ivy and reached up with his right. "Hand it down!" he called.

"He means the bag," Grundy informed Irene. She didn't bother to glare at him this time; she handed it down. Xavier had no trouble holding the bag, as long as he didn't have to move.

Now it was time for her. She didn't relish descending a vertical vine in her panties, but really, it was not worse than wearing a bathing suit. When she had been a teenager, she had believed that the mere sight of those celebrated green panties would drive men mad, so naturally she had taken every opportunity to proffer fleeting glimpses of them. Now she was in her--alas--late twenties, and long past such illusions. If only she had known what was coming, she would have come prepared!

Prepared--how? If she had not worn a skirt, she could not have caught these seeds. It would have seemed silly to bring a big bag. So maybe it was just as well, the way it had happened.

No sense dawdling. She swung her legs over the edge and found footholds in the vine. She knew Xavier was looking up at her legs, but that could not be helped; besides, he was worried that she might fall. In moments she would be below him, anyway.

The Simurgh reminds her as she goes to remember the nature of the seeds she carries.

Pun Count: 185 by the end of Chapter 9.

# ? Aug 20, 2013 23:53

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Am I the only person of age who rolls his eyes every time 28-year-old Irene thinks of herself as a hideous, dried-up hag?

# ? Aug 21, 2013 04:08

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

Selachian posted:

Am I the only person of age who rolls his eyes every time 28-year-old Irene thinks of herself as a hideous, dried-up hag?

I imagine Anthony would trot out some variation on that tired 'It's the Middle Ages, so...' excuse if he were called on it.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 04:23

Tezzor: Jul 29, 2013; Can't post for 3 years!

Selachian posted:

Am I the only person of age who rolls his eyes every time 28-year-old Irene thinks of herself as a hideous, dried-up hag?

You'd probably think a character was unattractive if they were literally twice the age of people you are attracted to.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 07:09

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 10 returns us to Ivy. She, Hugo and Stanley are trying to see if they can sneak past the monster at the cave entrance. However, he's too big. As they are talking, the creature awakens, getting to his feet. They try to run, but the only way is towards the giant. It roars at them, asking them why they're hear. Ivy tells Hugo and Stanley to fight the monster. Hugo summons a huge, overripe tomato and throws it. Stanley steams the giant's toe. The giant fails to notice his toe being kicked for a few seconds, then roars in pain.

quote:

He roared again. Stalactites picked up the impulse, vibrating like tuning forks, and a pile of old fish scales jumped, registering two notches on the earthquake scale. The wind from the roar blew the little dragon head over tail, interfering with his aim; his remaining breath of steam shot up in a vertical geyser and petered out.

(Pun Count: 186) Hugo then hurls an overripe watermelon, but even so, it doesn't do much cool the giant's toe. Ivy tells Hugo to think of something, and he summons cherry bombs, but they're too small. He tries a pineapple, which sets the giant's animal pelt on fire, causing even more pain. The giant then looks down at Stanley, who steams him in the eye. However, now Ivy feels bad for the giant, since she got dust in her eye once and it really stung. She didn't really want to hurt him.

quote:

Hugo exchanged a look of bafflement tinged with disgust with the dragon. They found this feminine sensitivity as bewildering as her Sorceress talent. "You want to help the monster?"

Ivy apologizes and asks if the giant is okay.

quote:

The giant seemed as surprised as Hugo and Stanley had been. "Me? You talk to me?"

"You see any other gross, awful, one-eyed, hairy giants in here?" Hugo inquired sarcastically.

"I see nothing at moment," the giant said, rubbing his orb with a callused fist.

"Don't do that!" Ivy cried, remembering admonitions by her mother. "You'll get dirt in it and make it worse!"

The giant stopped immediately. It seemed he was responsive to the voice of female authority. "It hurt, but will mend," he said. "I got steamed worse before and mended okay."

"I'm glad," Ivy said. "We didn't mean to hurt you, really. We just wanted to get away, so you wouldn't eat us."

"Why you not say so?" the giant demanded. "I not eat people! Too small, bad taste! I let you go."

"I don't believe you," Hugo said.

"All I ask, what you do in cave," the giant pointed out, blinking his eye. "Why you not answer me?"

Now Ivy and Hugo exchanged glances, then looked at Stanley, who rippled a shrug down the length of his body. "I guess we didn't think of it," Ivy confessed. "We just thought naturally you'd--we're only children, you know."

The giant didn't know - he thought they were thieving monkeys. Hugo doesn't trust the giant, of course, and the giant feels likewise.

quote:

"I'm sure Hugo is sorry."

"I am not!" Hugo exclaimed. "It was war!"

"Oh, that different," the giant said. "All fair, love and war."

"Yes!" Hugo agreed, mollified. "My mother says that!"

"She know. Mothers know. What bomb you use?"

Ivy suggests that they all be friends, but the Cyclops says that real people aren't friends with him. However, when Ivy asks why, he doesn't know - it's just tradition. Since they're too young to know about tradition, they can be friends. He offers them some griffon, but Ivy doesn't want any. Stanley is happy to eat it, though. Hugo summons the Cyclops some bananas.

quote:

"Oh, sure. Anything." Hugo, happy to show off his present power, conjured a hand of plantains. This was, of course, a giant hand, and each finger looked like a monstrous banana, but was too tough for a normal person to eat raw.

(Pun Count: 187) Hugo also summons blue and yellow berries for himself and Ivy. (Pun Count: 189) They tell their stories to the Cyclops, and he tells them his.

quote:

His name was Brontes, and he had once been one of the powers of the air, along with his brothers Steropes and Arges. They were some of the children of the Sky and the Earth, and they forged thunderbolts for their father. But the Sky grew jealous of them, and deprived them of their powers, and banished them. Their mother Earth gave them sanctuary in her realm but could not do more, for she was not as strong as their father; besides, she liked the Sky. "He gets tempestuous at times," she had conceded, "but he's got such a nice blue eye. Besides, I need the rain he sends."

So Brontes had hidden here in this obscure cave for a long time, afraid to go abroad by day because of the wrath of the Sky, and his power of thunder had been usurped by the self-styled Cloud-King Fracto, who had originally been no more than minor fog. Brontes was alone; more than anything, he missed the company of his brothers, but he did not know where they were and did not dare range too far from his cave, lest he be caught in the open when day came and be destroyed by one of the very thunderbolts he had helped forge so long ago when he was young.

Ivy offers to help find his brothers.

quote:

"There's something about her," Hugo said. "I never was very good with my fruits until she came along, and I don't think Stanley was as hot with his steam."

"All it takes is a positive attitude," Ivy said brightly, pleased with her ability to turn a good phrase. "When I think maybe I can do something, like talking well, then I try it and find I can do it. When Hugo really tried to conjure good fruit, then he did it. And Stanley was able to make hotter steam when he tried. So maybe if you really tried to see where your brothers are, you could do it."

Ivy enhances the Cyclops' vision, and now he can see right through trees.

quote:

Brontes swung his gaze around. "I can see through the cave wall!" he said, amazed. "Through the mountain itself! I've got Y-ray vision!"

(Pun Count: 188)

quote:

Hugo's brow furrowed. He had picked up smatterings of information relating to magic, since that was his father's business. "I think you mean Z-ray vision," he said.

(Pun Count: 189)

quote:

"It's Hoo-ray vision!" the Cyclops said. "Now I can see all Xanth!" He continued to swing his gaze around, taking it all in. "And there--there's my brother Steropes! Oh, he looks so much older! He's in a cave on the other side of this very mountain! I never realized! And Arges--in the next mountain over! I guess we hunted in different directions! So near and yet so far!"

(Pun Count: 190) They decide to head out after that, and let Brontes meet his brothers. He gives them a little bone that, if they chew on it, will summon him to help them. Ivy knots it into her hair. As they head on, they bump into a girl.

quote:

It did seem to be a girl. But though the size of the figure was between those of Hugo and Ivy, she was no child. She was a petite, dark, lovely little woman. As she spied them, her hand moved to her hip and drew forth a brightly gleaming knife. "Stay away from me, monster!" she cried.

Ivy explains that Stanley isn't dangerous, but it doesn't seem to work.

quote:

Ivy knew that most women were clumsy with weapons, but this one evidently knew how to use hers. Maybe it was because she was so stunningly pretty, despite her somewhat bedraggled condition. Ivy's mother had impressed upon her that pretty girls needed to be able to defend themselves.

The girl is a goblin. This confuses Ivy, since goblins are ugly.

quote:

"Not the girls," Hugo said. "My father says the goblin girls are pretty, and he knows just about everything, so it must be true."

"Only the Good Magician knows everything," the woman asserted.

"That's what I said."

She looked at him again, startled. "Yes, the goblin girls are pretty, and the goblin men are ugly," she agreed after a moment. "That's one reason I deserted my tribe to seek romance. Are you quite sure the dragon won't bite?"

Finally she accepts it. Hugo offers her food.

quote:

"I really haven't eaten since yesterday!" the woman exclaimed, as if this were highly significant news. There was a certain flair in the way she spoke; it was part of her beauty.

"Sit down and eat and tell us your story," Ivy invited her. "I'm Ivy and this is Hugo."

The goblin girl accepted the raspberries and sat delicately on a mossy stone. "I'm Glory, daughter of Gorbage, chief of the north-slope Gap Goblins. My story is very poignant."

Hugo and Ivy were perplexed now. "What kind of ant?" Ivy asked.

(Pun Count: 191)

quote:

Glory smiled briefly as she chewed on a raspberry whose juice was no darker than her lips. "Poignant. It means piquant."

"Another kind of ant?" Ivy asked. "We did see some gi-ants in the coven-tree."

(Pun Count: 192)

quote:

The woman frowned, still looking quite pretty. "I meant to say sad," she clarified. "Pointed and sad."

"Oh," Ivy said. "But I don't like sad stories. Couldn't you make it happy?"

"Possibly it will have a happy ending," Glory said.

"Oh, goody!" And Ivy settled back to listen, while Hugo conjured more fruit for their new acquaintance.

Pun Count: 192 by the end of Chapter 10.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 13:28

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Mors Rattus posted:

Hugo inquired, Ivy cried, the giant demanded, the giant pointed out, Ivy confessed, Hugo exclaimed, Hugo agreed, she cried, the woman asserted, she agreed, the woman exclaimed, Ivy invited, Ivy asked, she clarified, Xavier remarked, Chem murmured, the serpent hissed, Zora asked, she cried...

I lost the will to continue. Elmore Leonard is spinning in his grave.

Elmore Leonard posted:

Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated," and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 15:04

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 11: back to Irene.

quote:

Irene was beset by doubt. First she worried that they would drop the bag of seeds in the course of the frequent passings back and forth; when that didn't happen, she was concerned that she would misplace her grip and fall herself. In between, she was nervous about the impression she was making on those below, climbing down the vine in her blouse and green panties. At age fifteen, she would have loved the excuse; now it bothered her considerably. She wasn't certain whether it would be worse to have people admiring her exposed legs and whatever--or to have people condemning them. She had tried to keep trim and firm, but...

They manage to make it down in one piece.

quote:

As soon as she and the seeds were safely down, Irene grew a dress plant and a new pair of lady-slippers, then clothed herself properly. But her worries were only replaced by others. Where was Ivy now? Had the Cyclops eaten her? No, of course not; the little ivy plant--what a contrast between the one she wore and the one she had climbed!--remained healthy. But it would still take at least a day to get back, unless she grew another flying plant and flew back. Chem wouldn't be able to come along, then, or Zora Zombie, and she needed these friends. Also, none of her flying plants could handle the additional burden of the big bag of seeds. Better to ride back as they had ridden in, though the loss of time chafed.

Suppose they encountered the Python again, or the maenads? There were so many hazards between her and her child!

Irene got a grip on herself and checked her big new bag of seeds. She picked out several familiar ones and several unfamiliar ones, just in case. She had used up so many of her regular seeds that she could no longer depend on them.

The Muses were friendly, civilized, intelligent women, and Irene would have loved to visit with them, but she had no time for chitchat. Any delay could be horrendous for Ivy! As it was, there might not be enough time. Everything was so uncertain! "Let's get moving!" she snapped.

Irene continues to worry about literally everything. Grundy asks if there's anything wrong.

quote:

"Shut up, you little rag blob!" she snapped.

"He only asked if--" Chem started.

"You too, animal rump!" Irene said.

Hurt, the Centaur was silent. Irene had never before addressed her in such manner, and the language was undeserved.

"The seeds!" Xavier exclaimed. "The big bird said to remember what they were!"

Suddenly it connected. "Doubt, Dissension, and War!" Irene exclaimed. "I've been doubting ever since I got them!"

"That isn't all," Grundy muttered sullenly.

Irene realized that it wasn't enough just to know the cause of her problem. She had to find a way to eliminate the bad effects of the seeds.

"We can carry them," Xavier said helpfully. "Pass them out, one to a person, so it won't be too bad for none of us."

Despite her doubt, irritation, and growing inclination for violence, Irene saw the merit in the suggestion. The lout was actually pretty smart. She handed the seed of Doubt to Grundy, the seed of Dissension to Xavier, and the seed of War to Zora. She didn't want the two steeds to have them; they were too important for transportation, and Xap would be too dangerous if he developed warlike notions.

Irene immediately feels better, but Grundy is now worrying, and Xavier is irritable and rude.

quote:

"Don't let the seed of Dissension govern you!" Irene warned, having felt its effect herself so recently.

"Shut your yap, you middle-aged broad!" he snapped at her.

Irene felt the color cruising up her neck and face. She knew the cause of his language, but it was all she could do to hold her tongue.

She looked apprehensively at the zombie, who now rode behind Xavier again. Zora seemed as sanguine as only a zombie could be, despite the fact that zombies had very little blood. Apparently the seeds did not affect the undead. "Give your seeds to Zora," Irene called. "She can handle them." At least Irene hoped so.

They start heading back, but the Python is waiting for them, bruised and hurt but alive and hungry. Irene gets out a dragon seed and plants it.

quote:

The seed sprouted vigorously--but something happened to Irene's head. She put her hand to her hair--and discovered plants growing there. She had missed three seeds hidden in her hair, and her command had started them off! Normally only the seed she directed her attention to grew, which was why the big bag of seeds wasn't sprouting; but there was some peripheral effect, and seeds actually in contact with her body could also be set off, though at a slower rate. She was starting a garden in her hair!

Worse, there was another seed hidden in her bosom. It must have fallen there during the original spray from the Tree. It was growing inside her blouse, curling around an unmentionable area. She plunged her hand down her neckline, fishing for the plant.

"What a place this is!" a sneering voice exclaimed from inside her dress. "Are these mountains, pyramids, or bags of sand?"

Worse and worse! That was a devil's tongue plant! She had to catch it and get it out before the others noticed.

(Pun Count: 193)

quote:

"I've heard of cushy locations," the tongue said, slurping around some more. "But this is entirely too much of a good thing! I can't get my roots properly grounded in all this cheesecake."

Irene finally got her fingers on the tongue. It was slimy and slippery, but she yanked it out. The thing flapped about in her hand, but could not get free.

"What you got there?" Xavier inquired, glancing at her.

"What's it to you, you son of a witch?" the devil's tongue demanded. Irene hastily threw it away. It landed in an elephant bush, which trumpeted angrily. "Oh, go pack in your trunk!" the tongue said.

(Pun Count: 195)

quote:

Now Grundy looked at her. "Hey, you've fixed up your hair!"

Irene touched her hair again. The tongue had distracted her, but now these other three plants were the main concern. She identified each by touch: a centipede plant, a fiery love flower, and a bird's-nest fern.

(Pun Count: 198)

quote:

The Python hissed and slid forward, tired of waiting for this party to get moving. The half-grown dragon tree snapped at it. Her hair would have to wait a little longer!

(Pun Count: 199) The Python keeps charging, so Irene tosses a snowball plant into its mouth. (Pun Count: 200) It swallows the thing and starts freezing. They head on past while it's stuck in place. Howerver, now the maenads are coming, wounded but vicious.

quote:

Irene fished for a suitable seed. She had an African violent that she wouldn't have used on any man, but these wild women were another matter. She grabbed it and threw it forward. "Grow!"

(Pun Count: 201)

quote:

The seed sprouted in air, sending out green-backed foliage and silvery stalks. Gold disks fruited, gleaming in the sunlight. Brightly shining stones appeared, decorating the vines.

The maenads shrieked and pounced on the fruit. They plucked the golden coins and hurled them at the oncoming party. They tossed the greenbacks in the air.

(Pun Count: 202)

quote:

"What kind of plant is that?" Grundy asked.

Irene looked more closely and groaned. She had thrown, the wrong seed! "That's a treasure vine!"

(Pun Count: 203)

quote:

"These creatures of Parnassus sure like money," the golem remarked. "Look at them play with it."

Indeed, the wild women were throwing the bills and coins around as if they were splashing water. They formed piles of money and reveled in them. They fought over particular bills with big figures printed on them; it seemed women were partial to that kind. But those who had not amassed enough of a fortune were turning again toward the visiting party, their predatory eyes glinting. Irene knew there was nothing quite so dangerous as a hungry wild woman.

She got her fingers on the correct seed and threw it. "Grow, violent!" she cried.

The plant obeyed with alacrity. Purple clubs appeared, smashing at anything in reach. "Ow!" a wild woman screamed as a club clobbered her toe. She danced away on one foot. "Oof!" another cried as another club whomped her bottom. "Hooo!" a third screeched, sailing into the air, and a club sprouted right underneath her.

"You sure fight mean!" Xavier said admiringly as they skirted the melee and went on down the mountain.

"And you thought women were gentle," Grundy reminded him snidely.

Xavier looked nonplused. "Well, the centaur filly here is--"

Xap made a squawk of negation tinged with humor, and Chem blushed. It seemed there were some aspects of centaur private life that were sensitive. Startled, Xavier shifted his statement. "A mighty healthy one," he concluded. With that both hippogryph and centaur were satisfied.

Irene nodded to herself. That must have been some night exploration those two mixbreeds had!

Xavier brightened. "Zora!" he exclaimed. "She's gentle! She don't have a violent bone in her body!"

Zora remains completely immune to the three seeds, and seems to be getting cleaner and healthier.

quote:

It hadn't actually been peacefulness that the Furies had remarked on, Irene remembered, but Zora's loyalty to her parents. Chem was only going by what Irene and the others had talked about, since she herself hadn't been there at the time; it was a minor misunderstanding. "And the heel who caused her to suicide must have been an unutterable slob," Irene concluded with some feeling.

"She suicided?" Xavier asked, surprised.

"Heartbreak," Irene told him. "Her true love was false."

Xavier scowled. "You know, I never zapped a living man. I guess that's one I would. A man's got no business making no commitment he don't keep, ever."

Again, Irene was impressed with the young man's crudely expressed values. She herself had absolutely no romantic interest in him, but she could appreciate that if she had, that interest would not be misplaced. Xavier was true to his values, and they were decent ones. No woman would commit suicide because of him.

Zora, riding behind him, still said nothing. Irene realized with another surge of shame that all of them continued to treat the zombie like an unfeeling thing. What almost made it worse was that none of them did it intentionally; it just was very easy to treat a zombie like a zombie, a thing.

"I wonder what misfortunes she's cursed with," Xavier said after a moment. "The Furies' curses, which she saved us from?"

"Either they haven't affected her any more than the three bad seeds do," Irene said, "or they haven't occurred yet. We've had some close calls, but nothing's happened to her."

"It's really too bad about those curses," Xavier said. "I should have taken my own, like a man."

Irene found she could neither agree nor argue with that, so she let it pass without comment. After all, she also had been spared the curse of misfortune because of Zora's intercession. It was possible that a misfortune that would kill Irene would have little or no effect on Zora--but it was also possible that it would be equally devastating for human or zombie. She simply didn't know, so didn't know how to feel. She owed so much to Zora and had no idea how she could ever repay it.

Unfortunately, the Zombie Master has forgotten how to make the zombie revival formula, and Humfrey, the only other person who knew, is now an infant.

quote:

They reached the base of the mountain and crossed the rolling creekbed. This time Irene took the precaution of growing an action plant, which sent its roots throughout the bed and caused all the loose stones to vibrate and roll. Any snakes or other dangerous or annoying creatures would depart in haste! Crossing was now no problem; all they had to do was set their feet where nothing was active, because the action plant guaranteed that anything that could move was already doing so.

(Pun Count: 204) They make it back to the place where the Furies attacked...and now the Furies are back. They decide to just charge on by, while Irene prepares a special plant.

quote:

"Argh!" Meg screamed. "I know that one! 'Tis an honesty plant!"

"So how have you three harridans treated your mothers?" Irene called back.

"That's awkward," Chem said. "The Furies never had a mother. They sprang from the blood of their murdered father. That's why they're so concerned with--"

The Furies were appalled as they came into the spell of the honesty plant. "Ah, oh!" one screamed. "In truth we have neglected our sire's grave!"

(Pun Count: 205) The Furies must now scourge and curse themselves.

quote:

"Honesty does awkward things to people," Irene remarked smugly. "Yet I'm sorry if they never knew a mother." It was, she found, difficult to condemn anyone once that person's situation was understood. The Furies, too, were creatures of tragedy.

They left the Furies behind, then found a secure place near a pleasant stream and made their camp. Irene grew a chain fern around the perimeter, so that any intruder would trip over it and set the sweet-bells plants to ringing a warning. Then she grew several food plants for them to eat and a blanket plant from which to make beds. She didn't worry about protecting herself from Xavier during her sleep; she now understood his nature well enough to know that he took seriously the warning of the Simurgh not to mess with a spoken-for woman. He would turn his attention elsewhere as soon as this mission for his mother was complete, and whatever girl he found would be fortunate.

(Pun Count: 207)

quote:

How she wished she were back with her husband Dor, who was surely quite worried about her! But he could, if he thought of it, get hold of a magic mirror that would show him she was all right.

Too bad, she thought, as she wound her way toward a troubled sleep, that Dor could not similarly verify exactly where Ivy was. Good Magician Humfrey had been able to tune the mirrors on to anyone or anything, but they would not obey other people as readily. There was a mirror at Castle Roogna that would show either Dor or Irene, whoever happened to be away from the castle, but no one else. They had assumed that Ivy would always be with one parent or the other--indeed, she always had been before, or at least within calling range--so they had not worried about tuning to her separately. That could have made an enormous difference this time! But at least the little ivy plant Irene carried offered its continuing assurance. Without that, she would have been driven to distraction long before now.

They head onwards in the morning, and decide to stop for a drink. Irene goes to take a poo poo.

quote:

The hippogryph put down his beak and scooped in a mouthful of the clear water, raising his head to let it trickle down his throat, bird-fashion. He glanced across at Chem, making a flick of the wing to invite her to join him, but she was waiting for Irene, helping to shield her from the view of the males.

"If Xap says the water's good, it's good," Xavier said cheerfully. "Not that there was any question; you can see how green it is around here. No dragons in this spring!" He flopped down on the bank and put his mouth to the surface, man-fashion.

Zora, beside him, tripped over a rock and plunged headlong into the pool. "Hey!" Xavier exclaimed, scooting back to avoid the splash. "I meant to drink it, not swim in it!" He was smiling good-naturedly.

Zora got awkwardly to her feet and trudged out of the shallow water. Her sunken eyes seemed to glow as she gazed at Xavier.

"There's something odd about her," Grundy remarked. "Do zombies glow?"

"Maybe when they're in love," Irene said facetiously as she emerged from the bush. She would have been embarrassed, too, if she had fallen in the pond!

"Love?" Chem asked. "You know, some springs--"

"Don't drink that water, Xav!" Grundy shouted.

It is indeed a love spring, and now Zora is in love with Xavier.

quote:

"The misfortune!" Xavier exclaimed in horror. "The curse that was meant for me! She got it instead!"

That made sense, Irene realized. Obviously the curse of the Furies had been slated for Xavier; he had been poised to drink, and only the zombie's accident had brought it on herself instead. This could have been considered coincidence--but the curse eliminated that explanation.

"What worse misfortune could there be for a zombie," Chem murmured, "than to fall in love with a living man?"

And she can't solve it by leaving Xanth because she'll just die there, being a zombie. They wonder why Xap wasn't affected, though - and the reason is simple: the first female he saw was Chem, and he was already in love.

quote:

Irene understood the centaur's problem. Xap was one fine animal--but he was an animal. Chem was half human. She might dally with an animal, and even seek offspring by him--centaurs were notoriously open about such things, in contrast to straight human conventions. But love? Marriage? That was a more substantial matter. Males could fall in love readily, because their lives were not so much affected by it. They did not have to bear the offspring. Females were more careful, because their necessary commitment was greater. Chem would have to handle this in her own fashion and was surely competent to do so, as most women were.

Zora, however, was not competent. She had not been allowed to make her considered choice. An impossible love had been imposed on her. Irene didn't know any good way out of that. She had learned that zombies did have feelings, from her association with Zora. But when Zora had already suicided once for love, what remained for her?

And there's still one curse remaining for her.

quote:

"Make sure Zora understands what happened and why," Chem told Grundy.

"She understands," the golem said. "She sort of liked Xav anyway. He's a decent man, you know."

"I know," Irene agreed. Xavier was a much better man than one would have expected the son of a witch to be, perhaps because he did not let his mother influence him unduly. He preferred to go flying--and that, perhaps, had been his chief defense against corruption. The Furies had criticized him for neglect of his mother, but he was probably correct in that neglect. Some mothers did not deserve to be honored too much.

Again Irene reacted to what had happened. The Furies had planned to force Xavier into love with a zombie! The sheer evil of it appalled her. Now she was the one remaining to be cursed, and she knew it would be terrible, all out of proportion to her error--and that it would fall again on Zora. There was no way to view it that offered any positive aspect.

They moved on, but now Zora rode behind Irene. The others tacitly agreed that the zombie should not be with Xavier, who could only be embarrassed by her presence.

They came to a region they hadn't seen before, because a number of stone figures decorated it. Perplexed, Chem projected her map. "No--this is on our route. I thought I remembered it. See, my map shows us right on the dotted line. These statues weren't here before."

"Could be the work of Maw," Xavier said. "She collects strange animals and plants. She never collected no statues before, but she might start."

"These are very finely wrought likenesses," Chem remarked. "Look, there are even a number of insects." She picked one up and held it in the sunlight. It was a henroach, with every leg and two fine antennae perfectly sculptured in stone. "A very fine artisan made this."

(Pun Count: 208) Irene, hopwever, spots a tall and voluptuous woman: the Gorgon.

quote:

Slowly the figure turned. Chem suddenly balked, and Irene had to hold on to keep her seat. Zora, less able to react, started to fall. Irene grabbed her, looking down. The zombie stiffened, her flesh congealing. "Close your eyes!" Chem cried. "She's not veiled!" Irene's eyes snapped closed before she raised her head. "Gorgon!" she cried. "It's I, Irene! Put on your veil!"

"Why?" the Gorgon asked.

"Because otherwise you'll turn us all to stone!"

"That's right, I will!" The Gorgon agreed, sounding surprised.

"Of course you will!" Irene snapped, shaken by her near escape. She had assumed--but assuming could be treacherous, as the episode at the love spring had so recently shown. "Why weren't you wearing your veil? You know you can't go around barefaced!"

"I--forgot," the Gorgon said, as if remembering something that might have been important a long time ago. "Very well; I'm veiled now."

The Gorgon wandered into a forget-whorl and forgot her mission and power. Irene reminds her, and she manages to remember Hugo. She was only just barely glanced, not hit full-on. Zora got hit by her gaze, though - the second curse.

quote:

"Yet there is a philosophical alignment," Chem continued. "Xavier's curse and Irene's curse--love and death--visited on the same person. The only cure for the one is the other. Zora isn't suffering now."

"The hell with that!" Xavier cried. "I won't let her die, not after what she done for me! Zora, come back!" And he took the zombie statue in his arms and kissed her on the mouth.

The others watched, saddened yet fatalistic, knowing that the man meant well but that the woman was doomed--and had been doomed from the time she absorbed the curses. The terrible Furies had had their way.

Then something amazing happened. The statue began to sag.

It appears that zombies are immune to the Gorgon's gaze, much as Zora was immune to the Python's. She was only partially petrified.

quote:

"There--there is a rationale?" Irene whispered numbly. "If you were stone, or mostly stone, and the man you loved embraced you and kissed you and begged you to return--would you respond?"

Irene thought of herself becoming stone, and her husband Dor kissing her. "I suppose--if there were any way--any way at all--" Irene agreed faintly. "Love has power we hardly understand--"

Xavier has decided that while he's not very smart, he does love Zora. And currently she doesn't look much like a zombie, thanks to a mix of love and the Gorgon's power. She is also apparently pretty.

quote:

"But you--" Irene protested weakly. "You don't love--"

"I know where the love spring is," Xavier said. "I know what's right. Nothing to stop me from taking a drink--I was going to do that before. It's supposed to be my curse anyway. I never was one to let someone else pay my debts."

Irene's respect for him increased again. Xavier had a conscience and a rather clear notion of what was required. He had decided to honor his mother's wish that he settle down, and he had chosen the one to settle with. This was a strange and unexpected union--but it did make a certain sense. And it nicely reversed the double curse Zora had absorbed. "Good luck," she whispered.

Xavier turned to Zora. "Do you like to fly?" he asked.

"I do," she said clearly. Her teeth showed as hard and clear as polished stone when she smiled.

Xavier and Zora will take the seeds to Xanthippe, and he already has the feather, so they head off and allow Chem, Irene, Grundy and the Gorgon to continue hunting. But first they have to stop by the love spring. In the meantime, Irene finds the entire thing very heartwarming.

Pun Count: 208 by the end of Chapter 11.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 15:09

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 12: Ivy again.

quote:

"I am the youngest and prettiest and sweetest daughter of Gorbage Goblin, chief of the Gap side Goblins," Glory repeated as she delicately chewed on the blackberries, grayberries, brownberries, guavas, and sugarplums Hugo conjured for her appetite. "I am in love with a wonderful creature."

(Pun Count: 212)

quote:

"Love--that's poin-ant or peek-ant?" Ivy asked.

"Wonderfully sad," Glory said firmly.

"Love isn't sad," Ivy said, thinking of her family. She was glad for this chance to rest, since she wasn't used to walking the long distances she had covered in the past two days. "My father says love is fun, and my mother says it depends on the time of day."

Glory smiled. "They surely know. But you see, this is forbidden love. That makes it sad.

"How can love be forbidden?" Hugo asked. "My father says anything is possible with magic, except maybe paradox, and he's working on that."

"What is possible is not necessarily permissible," Glory said. "Love really shouldn't be forbidden. But after all, he's not a goblin." She bit into some more fruit. It was evident that when the goblin girl said "famished" she meant very hungry indeed.

"Well, my father says goblins are related to elves, gnomes, and dwarves," Hugo said. "They're of modified humanoid stock, he says. So they can interbreed if they want to, and when they run afoul of a love spring--"

"That's true," Glory said. "Any two species can interbreed in Xanth, but this is generally not voluntary. Even if the individuals approve, others of their kinds do not. And some liaisons are expressly forbidden. I love a harpy."

Both children gazed at her blankly.

Glory sighed. "I see I'll have to explain. The goblins and harpies are enemies. The enmity goes back over a thousand years."

You must be older than you look," Ivy said, perplexed.

Glory smiled again. She was extremely pretty to begin with, and when she smiled, the forest seemed to brighten. "No, I'm only sixteen. I mean the quarrel is ancient."

Ivy can apparently remember that her father works in Castle Roogna most of the time, but not that she lives there.

quote:

Glory shrugged, not really interested. "Well, once goblins and harpies existed in peace. They even shared caves. The goblins used the floors and the harpies used the ceiling perches. But in time, it got crowded, and the goblins complained about the droppings. You see, goblins sleep with their mouths open so they can snore properly, and--" She shrugged again. She did it very well. "The harpies got angry and put a curse on our males, making them ugly--well, really it was on the females, making them prefer ugly goblins. I understand it is much easier to apply a curse of perception than one of actual physical change--that's why illusion is so popular. Anyway, the girls stayed pretty, but the goblin men, owing to sexual selection--ugh! So the goblins got even for that by luring away all the harpy males--who, it seems, were partial to fully fleshed legs, unlike the chicken legs of the harpy females--until there were no males left and the harpies were all female."

Now Hugo's brow wrinkled. "All female? But how--?"

"I don't know exactly how they reproduced. Maybe they laid parthenogenetic eggs."

"What?"

"Harpies hatch from eggs," Glory explained patiently. "If there's no male, the eggs may hatch anyway--but only female chicks. Something like that. I'm not much for parthenogenesis myself; it's not a type of magic I understand. Anyway, they were all female, and mostly old and ugly and bitter, as perhaps they had a right to be. They were absolutely furious at us, though all the goblins had done was get even for what they had done to us. So there was war. All the goblins and our allies on the ground, against all the harpies and their allies in the air. In those days, the goblins and harpies were the most numerous creatures in Xanth and wielded the most power. But after the battle, there were not nearly so many of either, and true human folk became dominant.

"At least the curse was off, and the goblin girls liked handsome males again, and the harpies had a few males. But the damage took a long time to clear, because there weren't any handsome male goblins left, which made the girls understandably reluctant. There was only one harpy cock for every hundred or so hens, and all the hens were ugly and dirty, which made the cocks reluctant. So in eight hundred years, the numbers of goblins and harpies have hardly increased. Most goblin males are still ugly, and so are the old harpy hens. During that period they still fought one another, in honor of old grudges, but not so much, because there were so few--and the Gap Chasm interfered."

Stanley perked up his ears. He remembered the Gap! "How could the Gap do that?" Hugo asked. "No one even remembered it!"

"That's the point," Glory said. "It's very hard to cross the Gap when you don't remember it. Especially when there's a dragon in it who gobbles anyone who tries to pass. So gradually, the goblins settled north of the Gap, the harpies settled south of it, and the warfare diminished. It was really the Gap that brought peace to Xanth."

But now that the forget-spell is breaking up, it's much easier to cross the Gap. Ivy mentions how she thinks everyone is nice.

quote:

"I guess everyone's nice, if you know the person," Ivy said. "I like just about everything I meet, except maybe some clouds."

"Some clouds can be bothersome, especially the ones that rain on my hairdo," Glory agreed. "You must have been raised in a loving household."

"Isn't everyone?"

The goblin girl made her sad, peek-ant smile again. "Alas, no. My father is ugly and vicious, like most goblin males, and my mother was always afraid of him. Oh, I'm not saying Gorbage is a bad man; he is after all, my father. It's just his way. You see, though we goblin girls now prefer handsome and gentle men, they aren't very good fighters, and so they don't survive very well in our region. Gorbage is chief because he is violent and ruthless and tougher than other goblin men. He has been a good provider, but he just doesn't understand love. When my older sister Goldy came of age, Gorbage made a party of creatures escort her to the northern goblin tribes so she could trap a husband."

"But a pretty girl doesn't have to trap a man!" Ivy protested. "Not one as pretty as you."

"In Goblin-Land she does, unfortunately. That's part of what dismays me about it. And Goldy is not as pretty as I am, so it was that much harder for her."

"How could Gorbage make other creatures escort a goblin girl?" Hugo asked.

"He threatened to eat them if they didn't. He would have, too. One was an ogre, but the ogre had just fought the Gap Dragon--"

Stanley perked up again, interested, though it was evident he didn't remember this. Ivy wasn't certain whether this was because he had lost most of his memory when he lost his age, or whether the Gap Dragon had fought so many other monsters that he simply couldn't remember this particular spat.

Yadda yadda, summary of Ogre, Ogre.

quote:

"My mother grows neat grapevines," Ivy said. "Some of them reach right to the top of the castle, and we talk to the grapes at each end, and the sound travels back and forth just perfectly."

"Yes, of course," Glory agreed, slightly annoyed by the frequent interruptions. "We have vines that grow well into Dragon-Land, and from there they connect to some of the northern vines, but often there is no complete connection because somewhere along the way some dragon has scorched out a section. Anyway, we learned that Goldy had snared a northern goblin chief and was moderately satisfied. That's how most goblins marry. But I am too romantic for my own good. My sister is tough; she's always able to do what is necessary. Not I; I am more a creature of fantasy. So when it came my turn to marry--" She broke off, grimacing, and such was her beauty that even that expression was impossibly cute. "I fell in love with a male who conformed more perfectly to my ideals."

(Pun Count: 213)

quote:

"Hardy Harpy," she said. "I was sitting one evening, dangling my feet over the brink of the Gap Chasm and thinking my silly thoughts, when I saw this bird flying down below me. Only it wasn't a bird, it was a harpy, and I was afraid because those harpy hens have the foulest mouths you ever heard. I put my hand on my knife in case it should attack me and I got ready to scream. I hiked up my skirt so I could run, but there was something different about this one. I couldn't smell the normally foul odor, so I lingered longer than I should have and suddenly realized that this harpy was young and clean and male. I had never seen a male harpy before. They remain rare and they don't go out much to mix with other creatures. I was so amazed I just waited there, marveling, my skirt held high."

She hiked her skirt a little to illustrate. Her legs were astonishingly shapely. "And he came and perched beside me and told me what pretty legs I had, so of course I didn't run away then. Goblin men's legs aren't pretty--they're all black and knobby and warped--and harpy hens' legs are even worse. I can certainly see how a harpy cock would be turned off by a harpy hen's claws. And he spoke the truth about my legs." She glanced down at them appreciatively, as well she might.

"But weren't his legs bird legs?" Ivy asked.

"Yes, of course. But males don't need nice legs. He had such lovely wings, and a handsome face and manly chest. And he spoke with such gentleness and intelligence." She shrugged. "After that, he came to see me often, there at the brink of the Chasm, and in due course we fell in--"

"But didn't you get hurt?" Ivy asked, horrified. "The Gap's so deep--"

"Fell in love," the goblin girl continued blithely. "Oh, we knew it was wrong, for goblins and harpies are at war, and the war had started centuries ago because of just such liaisons as this. But we were so right for each other, we simply couldn't help it. We wanted to marry, but we knew we couldn't as long as I was bound to my tribe; the goblins would tar and defeather Hardy and then start mistreating him. So we could do nothing--and meanwhile, my father was looking for a way to get me north so I could snag a goblin chief and live in moderate declining satisfaction, like my sister. I knew I had to escape. Then the Gap Dragon left--and here I am, across the Gap, looking for my beloved. I hope I find him soon! If I do, then that will be the happy ending I promised we might have to this story."

However, Glory is having trouble. Xanth is a big place.

quote:

"So I have discovered," Glory agreed. "My legs were made for looking at, not for all this walking! Hardy doesn't even know I'm coming; I just hurried across, not knowing how long the dragon would be gone."

"But if he doesn't know," Hugo said, "and you don't know where he is--"

"He said he lives near the mouth organ, so I am looking for that, but I fear I am lost. I can't find it anywhere and I've searched interminably."

That sounded like a very long time indeed. "What's a mouth organ?" Ivy asked.

Glory blushed prettily. "I'm sure I wouldn't know, and I hesitate to guess. But I've got to find it."

"Hugo can figure it out," Ivy said. "He's smart!" Hugo, put on the spot, cudgeled his memory. "My father has books of pictures of things--monsters and plants--and I think there was one of a mouth organ. It's a big plant or animal or something, and it plays big, low notes you can hear for hours away."

(Pun Count: 214) They listen for it, but can't hear it. Ivy is sure that Stanley can hear it, however. He's distracted by something in the air, but he soon hears the thing. They head eastward, and eventually they can hear the organ, too.

quote:

"It does sound big," Ivy said, and pressed eagerly on. They rounded a large old tree and almost stumbled over a boy eating a bowl of polka-dot custard pudding. Startled, the boy jumped up, spilling his custard. The dots skidded around and rolled away, glad to escape the fate intended for them.

(Pun Count: 215)

quote:

The boy was absolutely furious. His hair changed from yellow to raging red. "You--" he expostulated, and changed into a huge, hairy spider covered in red fuzz that was darkening to black. "Made," the spider chittered, and became a scraggly faun with black horns and hooves turning green. "Me," the faun cried, and converted to a man with the green head of a snake. "Sspilll," the snake-head hissed, turning brown, and became a small, tan griffin. "My," the griffin squawked, and reddened into a raging ball of fire. "Lunch!" the fire roared, and yellow flames flared high. Oh, this thing was angry!

Hugo happened to be in the lead, so he took the main heat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't see you. I can conjure you some nice fruit to eat instead--" He conjured a huge and pretty pomegranate and held it out.

The fire shaped back into the boy. "You offer a lutin mere fruit, you cretin?" he demanded, dashing it from Hugo's hand. He changed into a monstrous moth, hovering angrily. "I'll see you cocooned for this!" the moth fluttered. "I'll drive you to the flame! I'll punish all of you!"

"Oh, I love puns," Ivy said. "Pun-ish me first!"

(Pun Count: 216) The lutin turns into an eyeball that sprouts mist, trying to blind them. Hugo conjures a pineapple, but that'll just spread the mist. Suddenly, Hugo has an idea. He summons a gourd, trapping the lutin within. They flee while the lutin is trapped, wondering how the lutin could change shape and blind people.

quote:

"He might have had some kind of herb, or maybe some juice from a blindworm, to make us blind."

(Pun Count: 217) They continue to follow the organ.

quote:

At last they came in sight of the mouth organ. This was a structure the size of a tree, made up of mouths. Tremendous, roomy, toothy, ugly, ogrish mouths blasted out the huge low notes, while smaller, animalish mouths issued the middle-sized central notes, and tiny, pursed, ladylike mouths shrilled forth the small highest notes.

A figure appeared in the sky. It was a harpy. It cried a command, and suddenly the mouth organ silenced, deafeningly. Ivy almost fell over; she had been bracing against the sound, and now there was none.

The harpy swooped toward them. It was male, with beautiful wings and the handsomest face Ivy had ever seen.

Gloryi ntroduces Ivy, Hugo and Stanley to Hardy.

quote:

"I just had to come," Glory said. "It was my only chance for happiness."

"True," the handsome harpy agreed. "Come to my perch, not far distant, and bring your friends. I will reward them with some pretty trinkets I snatched from a dragon's nest. Then, later, I'll tune the mouth organ to play something romantic--"

"Yes," Glory breathed.

Now Ivy began to catch on to what that meant. Kissing must be more fun to music!

However, that's when the goblins arrive, catching them all in a net. Stanley can't steam their way out because his head is stuck facing inwards.

quote:

Now Ivy recognized the creatures. They were male goblins. Each was so dusky as to be almost black, with a huge head, big flat feet, a bumpy round body, and a horrendous scowl. What were they doing here, south of the Gap?

That was answered directly by the goblin chief. "Now we've got the criminal harpy!" Gorbage exclaimed, grimacing in what was evidently supposed to be a smile of victory.

"That's redundant," another goblin said. "All harpies are criminals."

There was coarse general laughter. "Yes, birds of a foul feather," Gorbage agreed.

"And we'll hang him," a third goblin said, making a suggestive gesture of yanking up a rope and sticking out his purple tongue as if choking.

"Naw, he'd just fly away," another said. "We'll stab him!" And he made a gesture with a mock knife, as of guts being punctured.

"Better to club him to tar and feathers!"

"Force-feed him poison-berries!"

(Pun Count: 218) Ivy realizes that Stanley had been sniffing for the goblins, who were following them. Gorbage declares that Hardy must be put on trial. The goblins untangle them from the net, tying them all so they can't flee, even Stanley. Except Glory, who they leave free because she's a goblin girl and therefore helpless.

quote:

"Now we gotta do this right," Gorbage said. "We gotta have a jury-rigged verdict before we croak him. Who wants to be the jury?"

(Pun Count: 219) Glory ties to stop them, but Gorbage tells her to shut up, and she does. Ivy asks Hugo for help. Hugo says that his father, Humfrey, knows how trials go. They need a prosecutor and a defender and witnesses, or it doesn't count.

quote:

"Who says it doesn't count?" Gorbage demanded belligerently.

Again Hugo needed a boost of confidence, but Ivy's faith was strong, and so he had it. "The law. And people who don't follow the law of the land are crooks and thieves and murderers and all-around bad folk--which I guess goblins are anyway."

"What?" the goblin chief exclaimed, brandishing his dark fist. "It's the harpies who are bad folk! I'll exterminate you, you smart-mouthed twit!"

"Yes, of course," Hugo agreed. "That's what murderers do, by definition."

Again Gorbage paused. He was cunning enough to see that he could not handily disprove the charge of murder by murdering his accuser. Hugo had verbally outmaneuvered him. "Okay, snot! We'll have a persecutor and deaf-ender and witlesses." He glared around, but there were no free goblins; all twelve were on the hanging jury. "But I have no more people!"

(Pun Count: 223)

quote:

"Too bad," Hugo said. "Then you can't have a proper trial, and everyone will know you for what you are: a gutless murderer who kills innocent people dead."

"We'll have the trial!" Gorbage insisted, swelling to just this side of the bursting point. "You smart-mouth--you be the deaf-ender.--And--and my daughter'll be the persecutor. Then the mur--the execution's all legal."

Glory tries to refuse, but Hugo accepts for her. Ivy tells her that she should go along with it because Hugo's smart.

quote:

Reluctantly, Glory went to stand before Hardy's post. Ivy saw her hand move toward her knife, but she didn't draw it. Any attempt to cut Hardy's tether would bring the goblins down on them in a savage horde. "I intend to--to prove to this dumb jury that the defendant is the handsomest, finest, nicest male creature alive, better than any ugly old knobby-kneed goblin--"

"Out of order!" Judge Gorbage ruled. "You're supposed to prove that this feathered freak is guilty of corrupting and polluting a fine goblin damsel and must be instantly put to death in the crudest possible manner."

Stanley, meanwhile, is chewing through his net while the jury is busy watching Glory.

quote:

Ivy walked up. Only her hands were tied. Gorbage glared at her. "You sniveling little snit, do you swear to blab the truth, most of the truth, and nothing much except the truth, or else?"

"Sure," Ivy agreed, interested in this procedure. She had never been to a trial before. Stanley chomped through another strand. "I generally do."

Ivy says that all she saw was Hardy kissing Glory.

quote:

There was a stir of ire in the jury. "Pollution!" a jury-goblin muttered.

Ivy's brow wrinkled. "I thought plooshun was bad water."

"That too, honey," Glory murmured, smiling obscurely. She adjusted her clothing, again riveting the jury. "I now call the defendant as witness."

"That liar can't be sworn in!" Gorbage protested. Glory made a quarter-smile. "Is that true, defendant? Are you unable to swear?"

Hardy let out a stream of profanity that wilted the adjacent vegetation and sent wisps of smoke curling up from the post he perched on.

(Pun Count: 224) The goblins accept this as adequate. Hardy admits to kissing and wanting to marry Glory.

quote:

Gorbage turned mottled purple. "The audacity of this cretin! Execution is way too good for him!"

"But, Father," Glory protested innocently, "you have always maintained that the only fate worse than death is marriage."

There was a stifled snigger from the jury. Gorbage glared, and the sound snigged out. "Get on with it!" the judge gritted.

Now it's Hugo's turn. Stanley is still chewing.

quote:

Ivy just knew Hugo would do a brilliant job in an impossible situation; already he looked handsome and confident, despite being bound. She saw several of the jury-goblins do double takes, as if seeing him for the first time; they had not realized how competent he would turn out to be. "Is there any law against harpy-goblin marriages?" he asked rhetorically. Famous lawyers were good at rhetoric. Ivy knew, though she wasn't quite certain what the term meant.

Gorbage and the jury burst out laughing. They rolled on the ground, expelling black tears of mirth.

"I gather, from this unbecoming levity, that there is no law," Hugo concluded suavely, just the way Ivy had known he would. A defender of his caliber could not be rattled by crude behavior.

"Indeed, historically there have been many such liaisons. Any of you could marry a harpy hen if you wanted to."

This set off an even more ferocious siege of merriment. Not even a cockatrice would care to marry a harpy hen!

"And so a goblin girl can marry a harpy cock if she wants to," Hugo concluded brilliantly. "There is no cause for a trial, let alone an execution. I therefore move that this court be adjourned and the defendant set free."

Suddenly the goblins were sober. "Outrageous!" Gorbage exclaimed. "Marry a harpy? Why not eat zombie refuse while you're at it?"

Gorbage insists that Hardy can still be executed, and Stanley's not quite free yet. Hugo calls Hardy as a witness. He says that Glory is the one who brought up marriage first, and he accepted.

quote:

"Certainly. I was flattered. A pretty thing like her, with such lovely legs--"

Hugo turned to the jury, which was looking at the legs in question. "Note who was doing the corrupting. She asked him. So if one of them has to be executed--"

"No!" Hardy cried. "Don't try to incriminate her! I don't want my freedom at her expense! She's the sweetest, most innocent creature imaginable! She never corrupted anyone! I surely am the guilty party!"

Gorbage nodded. "I couldn't have put it better myself." Hugo eyed Hardy speculatively, as if the defender were a dragon toying with trapped prey. "Are you denying your prior testimony?"

Hugo dismisses him and calls Ivy next. Ivy says that Glory was the one seeking Hardy. Gorbage won't accept this, but Glory confesses to corrupting Hardy. However, Gorbage and Hardy both won't allow Glory to be executed. However, Gorbage finds an out: he turns to the jury, and since it's all goblins, they find Hardy guilty anyway.

quote:

"Don't worry--we'll execute you, too, twerp, after we're done basting the bird." Gorbage turned to Hardy. "Deaf-endant, you have been found guilty of corrupting and polluting this innocent goblin girl. I hereby sentence you to be--" He paused, considering the most awful way to do it. "To be burned at the stake and roasted for dinner!" He turned to the jury-goblins. "Go fetch wood for the fire. We'll have a feast!"

(Pun Count: 225) Glory begs Gorbage not to, but he refuses to relent. He orders her to light the fire, or else he'll torture Hardy. Stanley is still not yet free. Glory moves to cut Hardy free, but Gorbage knocks her knife away.

quote:

Glory approached the pile--and drew her knife. Gorbage, anticipating this, dashed it out of her hand before she could try to cut the rope that tethered Hardy. "You wouldn't be a goblin if you didn't try a trick like that," Gorbage said approvingly. "You'll make some chief real miserable someday. Now strike that match."

Glory lights the fire, but then throws herself onto it. Gorbage tries to get her free, but she's grabbed onto the post. Ivy has no idea what to do, and ends up falling into the brush.

quote:

"You can do it!" Ivy cried, suddenly certain that love could conquer all. "You can save him somehow!"

Glory looked at her. Hardy looked down at her. Smoke wafted across, stinging Ivy's eyes, forcing them shut--and when it passed and she opened them again, tearily, both Glory and Hardy were gone.

Ivy blinked. She saw the vines that formed the rope that had tied the harpy's feet. Now they were tied about nothing--and untying themselves. In moments the vines dropped into the brush, empty. What was happening?

The goblins were staring, equally mystified. "Where's the bird?" one cried.

Ivy feels herself being hauled backwards, off the fire, and Hugo's bonds untie themselves. Stanley busts loose, and Ivy hears Glory telling her to run. They all run, chased by a pair of goblins who get hit by a fallen branch, then menaced by a flying burning one. Hugo realizes that, somehow, Glory and Hardy are now invisible.

quote:

"They're invisible," Hugo said, using his enhanced intellect to figure it out. "See, Stanley can hear them and smell them; he's not worried." Indeed he wasn't; the little dragon was grinning with all his sharp little teeth as he watched the burning branch set fire to the pants of one goblin. Since goblins did not wear pants, it was quite an effect.

Hugo realizes that since they're both half-human-ish, they must have a shared talent: invisibility. Gorbage, however, also realizes they're invisible. He suspects invisible wood and invisible smoke. They end up fleeing the goblins safely, though Glory and Hardy have gone off somewhere else to escape.

Pun Count: 225 by the end of Chapter 12.

# ? Aug 21, 2013 18:51

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 13. Back to Irene. The Gorgon's memory is now returning. Irene suggests they team up, and the Gorgon agrees. The last news they had was that IVy was in the Cyclops' cave, so that's where they'll start. Grundy is easily able to learn where that is. Grundy also learns of a mouth organ in the area.

quote:

"That's a natural musical instrument," Chem explained. "Part plant, part animal, part mineral. It has many mouths that sound separate notes. It's a rare thing, but it does occur in scattered locations and can attain considerable size. It is said to be very impressive. When it spawns, the little mouth organs can be plucked and played by hand, as they aren't big enough to generate their own wind. But handling stunts their growth, so few make it to maturity."

(Pun Count: 226)

quote:

"It's hard to be a success if you're a plaything," Grundy agreed.

Irene cocked her head. Now she heard it, faintly, as from a fair distance to the east--deep, powerful, sustained notes, decorated by a pleasant, higher melody. "This one sounds mature," she said shortly. "Very nice. Some day we must visit it. But at the moment we have a more urgent mission."

Grundy can understand the organ due to its living parts. It's saying there are goblins in the area - a war party that captured a male harpy. All the organ is doing is alerting the harpies that the male has not been seen since the night before, so that they can form a battle wing to wipe out the goblins. War is coming. The loss of the Gap Dragon allows the goblins to easily cross the Gap, ending the goblin-harpy peace. The party hurries onwards, but harpies appear in the sky, thinking them goblins. Irene tries to reason with them, saying they're no goblins.

quote:

The leader-harpy hovered before them, peering. She had a hideous and filthy face, dangling, lumpy breasts, soiled tail feathers, and a nauseating odor. She was about as repulsive as a creature could get, not so much for her shape as for her lack of hygiene and her bad nature. "Why, so you're not!" the harpy screeched. "You made us waste all this effort for nothing! We'd better tear you apart anyway!"

Chem explains that they'll fight but don't want to. The harpy leader wants her to prove that they can fight and that the Gorgon really is the Gorgon. One of the harpies attacks, and the Gorgon petrifies her.

quote:

"And who the smut are you, runt?" the leader screeched.

"I'm Grundy the Golem," Grundy said proudly. "I can talk to any living thing, even your kind, you nauseating hen, though I have to hold my nose. Who the upchuck are you?"

"I'm Haggy Harpy, leader of this motley flock," the harpy screeched. "We're looking for goblins. Who are those others?"

Again, Irene was cautious about identifying herself completely. "I'm Irene. I grow plants."

"And I'm Chem," the centaur said. "I make maps."

Haggy hovered, pondering, while her flapping wings wafted the smell of her past them. "Stoning--talking--planting--mapping," she screeched, totaling it up. "A pretty collection of talents. You creatures are lucky; not everyone has magic." She rotated to address the others. "Hannah, execute plan SA," she said. Then she spun in air back to Irene. "What are you doing out here in harpy territory?"

"I'm looking for my lost child," Irene said. "A girl, three years old. Have you seen her?"

"Anybody seen her brat?" Haggy screeched to the other harpies, who were milling about in some private pattern that continually wafted their foul odor past the party on the ground. Irene hoped she could keep from gagging.

There was a discordant response. No one had seen any lost human child.

"SSAAA!" Hanna Harpy screeched. Suddenly the harpies Swooped in, acting together. Two carried a bag, which they dropped over the Gorgon's head before the Gorgon could get her hand back up to her veil. Others carried vine-cords, which they wrapped around the others. The action was so quick and treacherous that Chem did not have time to raise her bow.

"Grow!" Irene cried desperately at any plant in range. The grass under Chem's hooves shot up, and nearby trees put on new foliage, but there was nothing to interfere with the harpies. Naturally the confined seeds in the bag did not grow; that would have been a worse disaster than the harpies! In a moment all four of them were captive.

"Plan SA: Sneak Attack," Grundy said disgustedly. "I should have realized."

The harpies want to use their powers to track down the goblins. The harpies will kill the Gorgon and eat her if they don't help. They agree to cooperate.

quote:

"Go suck eggs!" Hannah screeched back. She had been hovering, waiting for the others to secure the victim properly, exposing the Gorgon's midriff for the gizzard operation. "I want blood!" She launched herself at the Gorgon, talons extended, mouth gaping with lust for gore.

"Don't tell me to suck eggs, you bloated bag!" Haggy screeched, launching herself after her. She moved very swiftly; harpies had had many generations of experience snatching things, and could zip forward in the blink of a smudged eye.

The two collided in the air; Haggy lifted a claw and made such a swipe at the other that several greasy feathers were wrenched out of her tail assembly. Hannah spun out of control, sideswiped a tree, and landed on her back, her spindly chicken legs poking straight up. She screeched such an oath that the grass around her turned brown. Then she flipped over, and flapped up, leaving a smudge of discolor on the ground. She perched on a branch, shaking out loose feathers. Discipline had evidently been asserted in the normal harpy fashion.

"Now, this is what you'll do," Haggy screeched to Irene. "You'll grow us some blood lilies and a pitcher plant of gall for us to snack on, and the horse's rear will show us a map so we can guess where the goblins are, and the imp--"

(Pun Count: 228) They have Grundy hunt for the goblins. Irene gets them to free her hands, but they warn that if she tries anything, they'll kill the Gorgon and stuff the entrails into her mouth. Irene grows the snacks for the harpies, and Grundy gets to work, though Irene warns him to look for a chance to free the Gorgon.

quote:

"You scheming females are all alike," Grundy said.

Irene smiled cynically. "Some day you'll encounter one your size, and she'll make you happy to be schemed into captivity--if you live through this present crisis."

"I can hardly wait." But the golem was momentarily thoughtful.

Grundy leads them on towards the mouth organ, though the plants have seen no gorgons. The harpies do not realize. Chem projects a map for them. Grundy manages to find the goblin trail, but there's no harpy with them. Haggy is certain he's dead.

quote:

She swooped low. "Straight ahead, on an island in a water table," she reported in a whispering shriek. "We can surround it. They think they're safe there, but they can't fly."

(Pun Count: 229)

quote:

Irene realized that this was a typical mistake; creatures who could not fly had little awareness of the threat from the air until it was upon them.

"We won't take a chance," Haggy decided. "Thirteen against thirteen--that's too nearly even. We don't want a fair fight, we want an easy slaughter. We'll make Stoneface look at them." They had it backward, Irene saw; they didn't realize that it was not the Gorgon's gaze that petrified people, but the sight of her full face. Irene was not about to correct their misimpression.

"But she'll look at us, too," another warned.

"That's right. Better not risk it right now. We'll bomb them instead. Get your eggs ready."

How the harpies carried eggs, Irene wasn't sure, but it seemed they had them somewhere. She also was not certain what good it would do to drop eggs on the goblins, unless the intent was to blind the enemy with the splats of whites and yokes.

Oh, and the harpies now plan to kill the party, since they're no longer needed. Irene calls for Grundy to free the Gorgon, but he can't. Instead, Chem tries to rip it off with her teeth. However, she's not in time - the harpy lays an egg at them from the air, which explodes as Chem shoves the Gorgon out of the way. Grundy starts trying to remove the bag from the Gorgon's head, but it's not working. Instead, Irene gets him to pick a random handful of seed for her.

quote:

A coral plant began to form coral on the golem's hand, and he hastily dropped the seeds. A sugar palm sent out a hand formed of sugar. Ironwood speared up, points already coated with rust because of their proximity to the water table. A saucer plant presented its dishes. A hunter's horn plant blew a loud note. Mistletoe nudged the earth with its toenail and fired off its seedpod. And a split rock plant dug its roots into the nearest rock and split it into two sharp-edged fragments.

(Pun Count: 236) Grundy uses one of the rock fragments to cut the bonds on the Gorgon's hands. Chem uses a map to confuse the harpy into aiming in the wrong place. The Gorgon then takes the stone to cut open the bag on her head. She can't get it open enough to stone the harpy, but she can see enough to hurl the rock, detonating the harpy's egg before it falls, killing her. The harpies attack the goblins, but a few go after the party. The Gorgon frees Chem, who shoots down a harpy, then frees Irene. They decide to take cover on the water table.

quote:

Chem agreed. They moved onto the water table, which was a raised, level plain formed of jellied water with a solid crust. It was a blue-green level surface, and it sank beneath their weight slightly, forming a slow ripple.

Irene grows some new plants.

quote:

The seeds sprouted in air and landed on the water table, where their roots delved down to find plenty of water for rapid growth. Leatherleaf ferns spread their leather across the plain. A gold-dust tree sent out a cloud of glittering gold dust. A foxglove swished its bushy tail and made hand signals with its glove. An amethyst plant grew purple crystals that sparkled in the sunshine. A balloon vine sent a cloud of colored balloons into the sky. A helmet flower produced several fine helmets in assorted sizes that Irene and the others harvested for immediate use in case an egg exploded nearby. A living fossil plant rattled its bones. And a water-ivy had a field day, spreading so quickly and thickly that it soon covered a sizable portion of the table. The vines and leaves became so big and piled on one another so thickly that they provided good cover for the party. The tabletop had become a thick jungle.

(Pun Count: 244) The goblins take cover in the jungle with them, and they attack the party as well. Grundy warns them not to aim for the heads, which are rock hard, but for the hands and feet, which are soft. The battle continues on, but they need to flee. The Gorgon thinks she must now reveal her face, but suddenly the male harpy arrives. Chem thinks she'll try to arrange a truce, since she recognized Gorbage.

quote:

Chem concentrated. Her map appeared--this time it was not a scene, but a huge display of letters: TRUCE. Simultaneously, the centaur called: "Gorbage! Gorbage Goblin!"

Few harpies could read, but the leaders were more educated than most. "Truce?" Haggy Harpy screeched, outraged. "Truce? Who says?"

And the goblin leader called back; "Who calls my name?"

"I am Chem Centaur," Chem replied. "I call for this truce because you goblins and harpies have no quarrel, and I want to show you this before you destroy your best chance for peace."

"Peace!" Gorbage and Haggy screeched together.

"We don't want peace!" Haggy continued.

"We want war!" Gorbage finished.

"But--" Irene protested, bemused.

"The old hen is right," Gorbage said. "We haven't had a good war in eight hundred years. It's long overdue!"

However, Hardy overrides Haggy and declares that they're going to talk truce. Gorbage doesn't care, but Goldy says that he'll have to kill her, too. Haggy wants to kill her.

quote:

"You certainly will not!" the male harpy cried. "I'm going to marry her!"

Irene was amazed. "It's true, then! No wonder these creatures are riled up! That's the most forbidden love, for them!"

"We'd better get a truce!" Chem said. "In a moment there'll be nothing but feet and feathers."

Irene grows wallflowers to provide protection and the party prepares for battle. Grundy is sent to inform the warring parties that the two lovers will come into the walls to talk peace along with Gorbage and Haggy. However, Grundy is rude to them for no reason and they don't listen. The two lovers show up, invisible, and explain their power. Chem blames recessive genes, and recognizes Glory as Goldy's prettier sister.

quote:

"My big sister Goldy," the girl said. "I'm Glory, the loveliest and nicest of my generation. And this is Hardy, the handsomest and best-mannered of his."

Irene introduced herself and her friends. "We're looking for my lost daughter--"

"Ivy!" Glory exclaimed. "The cute little child with the bone in her hair!"

Irene was astonished. "You met her?"

"She helped me find Hardy," Glory said. "Now I can see the family affinity. Her hair is a little green, while yours--"

"When she gets jealous, her whole face turns green," Grundy remarked, returning from the wall.

Glory also tells them that Hugo was with her, though the Gorgon doesn't believe that he can summon anything but rotten fruit.

quote:

Glory gazed at her, perplexed. "You must have excruciatingly exacting standards! His fruit certainly seemed good enough to me! And he's so intelligent--"

"Intelligent?" the Gorgon asked.

"Oh, yes! And handsome--"

The Gorgon shook her hooded head, baffled.

Irene, meanwhile, is baffled by the Gap Dragon as nice. Glory is baffled by the idea that Stanley is the Gap Dragon.

quote:

"You're being humorous, right?"

"That must be the case," Irene agreed faintly. Something was certainly funny here, but not humorous. "How did you meet them?"

They explain the whole trial thing.

quote:

"I just don't understand," the Gorgon said. "Naturally I want the best for my son, but I simply have to say that he was never brilliant or handsome or well talented. I wish it were otherwise, but--"

"It sounds as if his qualities have been improved," Chem commented.

"Ivy!" Irene exclaimed. "She's responsible!"

Chem also reasons that Ivy made the Gap Dragon nice.

quote:

"Not if her talent is selective," Chem pointed out. "If it should, for example, enhance only what she perceives, or chooses to perceive, or wishes--"

"It would require Magician-level talent to make my boy a genius," the Gorgon said ruefully. "For a long time I hoped he would improve as he aged, but now he's eight years old and has shown no sign--"

"Eight? If he's not a genius, he's close to it," Glory said. "He picked up on precisely the right points!"

"Anyway," Hardy said, "Hugo won my case--but the goblin chief. Glory's father, reneged, and set up to execute me--"

They explain the rest of the ordeal, and Irene reasons that if half souls can exist, a half talent can, too. Irene worries that perhaps all goblins and harpies share invisibility, so it wasn't really a sign of compatibility that Glory and Hardy shared that.

quote:

"So we fled my father's band," Glory concluded. "And Ivy and Hugo and Stanley escaped, too, for the goblins were following our footprints. Hardy carried me part of the way, though I weigh as much as he does, and he couldn't lift me far. But when darkness came, we camped in a tree my father's band couldn't reach and got a good night's rest." She paused to blush delicately. "Part of the night, anyway."

"We gave them the slip," Hardy said. "But they kept casting about, searching for us, so we couldn't really relax today."

"We were getting pretty tired," Glory said. "But now, with the harpies--"

"We heard the commotion," Hardy said. "I recognized the screeching and thought I could reassure my people that the mouth organ's news was inoperative--"

"I believe I have enough of the picture now," Chem said. "But we can do nothing unless we get the leaders to negotiate."

"I can get my father to come in here," Glory said. "But he won't listen to reason."

"And I can get Haggy Harpy here," Hardy said. "All males are princes in Harpydom; she must come at my call. But she won't listen either."

Chem tells them to get the two anyway.

quote:

Goblin and harpy shrugged. Anything was worth trying. Then Glory climbed the south wall, flashing some remarkably well-formed limbs, while Hardy flew into the sky. There had been little commotion from either side during this dialogue, perhaps because neither could be sure where the present advantage lay.

"Father," Glory called from the wall. "You must come in here and talk to the harpy leader, under truce."

"Never!" Gorbage answered, his voice faint but ugly in the distance.

"Otherwise I just might throw myself to my doom," Glory said, making as if to jump off the wall. It really wasn't high enough for the fall to be fatal, but the bluff worked; Gorbage agreed to come in.

Hardy had an easier time. "Come down and negotiate," he told Haggy, "or I'll tell the Queen Harpy you suck eggs."

That cowed the hen. "I'm no egg-sucker!" she screeched, and flapped down to perch on the north wall.[/qiote]

Chem explains their weapons, so that there is no fight. She then begins to explain her logic.

[quote]"For more than a thousand years, the goblins and the harpies have been at war," Chem said. "It started because of overcrowding and misunderstanding, and foul deeds were done on both sides. But King Roogna got things straightened away, and for eight hundred years the war has been quiescent. With the Gap Chasm and the Gap Dragon separating the parties, there has not been very much occasion for strife. But now it seems a romance has developed between the species--"

"I'll kill the fowl cock!" Gorbage cried. "Smirching my fair daughter!"

"That's 'smooch,' not 'smirch,' Father," Glory murmured.

"Listen, bulbnose!" Haggy screeched. "Your slut of a whelp of a daughter tempted him with her obscene legs, just like in the old days! She should swallow an egg sidewise!"

"What's wrong with her legs?" Hardy demanded.

"I'll egg her right now!" Haggy screeched, rising into the air. But Chem's arrow tracked her progress, ready to zing from the bow, and the Gorgon turned to face the harpy, her hand tugging at the hood. Haggy settled back down, muttering.

"Do you folk really object to interspecies marriages?" Chem asked.

"Of course!" Gorbage cried. "Why should we let miscegenation pollute our pure goblin breed? My daughter will marry a goblin chief!"

"Never!" Glory cried.

"We have enough trouble preserving our species," Haggy screeched. "We don't need goblin sluts adulterating our stock! And most of all, we don't need goblins invading our territory and killing off our few precious males!"

"Well, keep those motley cocks away from our unspoiled maidens!" Gorbage yelled back. "You sure don't see our males going after your stinking hens!"

"They couldn't catch them!" Haggy shot back.

"Regardless," Chem cut in loudly. "We do have a cross-species romance here. And I think your objections are not well founded. Many of the creatures of Xanth are crossbreeds. The griffins, merfolk, chimerae, basilisks, manticora--and, of course, my own species, the centaurs. The harpies are an ancient crossbreed line; you should not object to further cross-breeding."

"Not the goblins!" Gorbage said. "We are of straight semi-humanoid stock."

"As are the elves, gnomes, and ogres," Chem agreed. "I think there is as much variation in the humanoid variants as in the crossbreeds. Would you prefer to have your daughter marry an ogre?"

Gorbage spluttered, while Haggy burst out in raucous laughter. "Marry an ogre!" she screeched. "Breed some looks and intelligence into your stock!"

"Listen, rotten-egg-brain--"

"My point is," Chem said, cutting their insults off again, "crossbreeds and humanoid variants should not be ashamed to continue the traditions of Xanth. Maybe in drear Mundania the species don't mix much, but Xanth is not Mundane. That's why Xanth is so much better! We creatures of Xanth have much greater freedom to--"

"Would you breed with some other kind of crossbreed, not a centaur?" Haggy screeched challengingly.

"The old biddy's got you there, horsy!" Gorbage cried. "Would you--?"

"Yes," Chem said. "If he were a worthwhile creature, and if there were mutual respect and appreciation."

"Centaurs aren't supposed to fib!" Haggy cried.

"Yeah?" Gorbage asked at the same time. "Like what?"

"Like a hippogryph," she answered.

Irene watched her, wondering how far Chem would go to make her point. Centaurs were relatively open about some topics that human folk preferred to keep secret, but her liaison with Xap was really no business of these foul-minded creatures.

At first they don't believe her, but then Haggy remembers that Xap is in the area, and Chem confirms it.

quote:

"Then she's worse than any of us!" Haggy screeched indignantly.

"She sure is!" Gorbage agreed.

The two looked at each other, startled. They were agreeing! "Have you noticed," Chem said, "how few goblins and harpies there are, compared to what there used to be? And how many crossbreeds there are, and how vigorous they are?" Now both goblin and harpy were sullenly silent. "Did it occur to you that maybe your close inbreeding is weakening both your species?" Chem continued. "The straight human beings were losing power in Xanth, until they reopened the border and mixed with fresh new Mundanes. Human folk didn't want to do that, for they have always been afraid of the Mundane Waves, and contemptuous of the Mundane inability to do magic. But they did interbreed--and now the human folk are strong, and goblins and harpies are weak, when once it was the other way around. Before long, historically, you'll fade away entirely--especially if you keep killing one another off. You would both do better as species if you made peace and let your people interbreed, any who wanted to."

"Ludicrous!" Haggy screeched.

"Appalling!" Gorbage shouted.

Again they looked at each other, finding themselves in unsettling agreement.

Chem then demonstrates the shared talent of Hardy and Glory.

quote:

Haggy stared as the couple joined hands again and vanished. "What I wouldn't give for power like that!" she screeched faintly.

"Would you join with a goblin for it?" Chem asked.

"Never!"

"What--never?"

"Well..."

Chem moves on to her next point.

quote:

"And what of their offspring?" Chem continued. "Maybe they will combine the best of both species. They could be winged goblins, able to fly like harpies without sacrificing their legs. Maybe they will have magic talents by themselves, as human folk do. Maybe they will make your line strong again, able to do things no other creatures can do. Your descendants may once again dominate the Land of Xanth. They may once again achieve greatness. Will you deny your daughter and your species that chance?"

Gorbage scowled. "I never thought of it that way." He was violent and opinionated, but he did want what was best for his daughter.

"So why not end the war and give your blessing to the union of these two fine young folk? It could be the dawning of a new age for your kind."

"Well, maybe, but the scandal--"

Glory jumped up and down, clapping her fine little hands. "That's his way of saying yes!" she cried.

"And you?" Chem asked Haggy.

"I don't have any power over any male of our species," the harpy screeched reluctantly. "I'm just a common fighting hen."

"Which is her way of saying yes," Hardy said. "All the old battle-axes are alike. If Haggy goes along, they all will, even the Queen hen."

"Good enough," Chem said, and Irene realized she was moving it along so the longtime enemies would not have a chance to change their minds. "Let's declare this interminable internecine war over and be on our way."

However, the goblins and harpies aren't satisfied.

quote:

"I mean there has to be a bash," Gorbage said.

"And engagements aren't just started cold," Haggy screeched. "There has to be a big flap."

"We need a whoop-de-doo!" the goblin cried.

"And a poop-de-poo!" the harpy agreed.

"Not on my head!" Gorbage said. He turned around on the wall and waved to his troops. "War's over," he bawled. "Come on in for the whoop-de-poop!"

(Pun Count: 245) They gather and ask Irene to grow some party plants and music.

quote:

Irene fished for a seed and planted it. "Grow!" she told it. The thing sprouted into a cactus with ridges up the sides and needles in every ridge. It branched into a number of shoots, some large, some small. When the plant reached sufficient size, it began to tootle.

"What is that?" Grundy asked.

"An organ-pipe cactus."

(Pun Count: 246)

quote:

"We'll need dancing slippers," Glory said. "And hairbrushes, to pretty up."

Irene grew a moccasin flower, a hairbrush cactus, and, for good measure, a necklace plant so people could dress up.

(Pun Count: 249)

quote:

"And refreshments!" Haggy screeched. Irene grew a pickleweed.

(Pun Count: 250)

quote:

"And perfume," the Gorgon murmured.

Irene wrinkled her nose, agreeing. Already the air was close with the fetor of the harpies, and the goblins were none too clean themselves. Irene grew several sweetly scented flowers, including some drops, which were really varieties of rose by other names, smelling as sweet.

(Pun Count: 251)

quote:

"And everyone should sign the register," Hardy said. "But we don't have a--"

Irene grew an autograph tree. It had places for everyone to sign.

(Pun Count: 252)

quote:

"And some party stuff," Grundy said, getting into the spirit of it.

Irene delved for some more seeds, and grew a fiesta flower, a rainbow fern, a good-luck plant, a silver-ball plant, a pearl plant, a live-forever plant, a love-charm plant, and a bag flower for the refuse of the party. Now the enclosure seemed appropriately festive, and the scent of the perfume plants was almost overpowering, enabling her to ignore the aroma of the harpies.

(Pun Count: 260) They start the party.

quote:

Hardy and Glory went to the center of the enclosure, where the surface of the water table remained clear except for a layer of carpet grass. The organ-pipe cactus blasted out louder music, and they began to dance. Hardy hovered in midair, his wings shining, while Glory whirled before him, again showing her pretty legs. Irene felt more than a tinge of jealousy; once she had had legs like that!

The two came together, wings and skirt swirling like sections of the same apparel, then flung apart, then came together again in a joint swing. Then they separated completely, going to the walls of the enclosure where the spectators were. Glory skipped across to reach out her hands to her father, bringing him grumblingly onto the dance floor. She was lovely and he was ugly, yet somehow the affinity of lineage was apparent. He stomped and she pranced, their feet striking the carpet in unison, and the dance was good.

Hardy flew to the wall where Haggy perched. "Move your tail, you abysmal old hen!" he cried. She launched into the air, sweeping a dirty talon at him, but he spun in place, and circled, making an orbit about her, and shoved her toward the center. She screeched an epithet that momentarily darkened the sun, but could not truly oppose the will of a male of her species. So she spun in air, joining the dance. As it turned out, she did know how; the two never touched the ground, but matched the beat of the music.

Irene smiled privately. It was evident that the bottom of the harpy male hierarchy ranked the top of the female hierarchy. Haggy screeched her protest, but she would have been affronted had Hardy chosen any lesser hen to haul in to the dance before her.

Irene had a bright notion. She delved for another seed, and found what she wanted. "Grow!" she said, flipping it at the north wall, where the harpies perched. It was a fumigation bush, which would quietly clean any harpy in its vicinity. She found another and flipped it at the south wall.

(Pun Count: 261)

quote:

Then the two couples separated, each person going out to fetch in another. Gorbage went to the wall to insult another harpy into joining them; Glory brought in another goblin; Hardy got a new harpy hen; and Haggy flapped over to challenge a new goblin. The four on the dance floor became eight. It was a multiplication dance.

Soon the goblins and harpies were all in the dance, and several were questing for new partners. A goblin came to claim the Gorgon, who was startled but suffered herself to be drawn forward. "But I can't see very well," she protested faintly through the hood as she went.

"Who needs to see?" the goblin demanded, moving into the close ballroom embrace, his head coming up just about to her waist. "You petrify me!"

(Pun Count: 262)

quote:

A harpy came for Grundy. She simply snatched the golem up and whirled with him in the air. Irene noticed that her feathers were now clean; the fumigation bush was working. All the old hens were looking better, now that their colors could be seen; they really weren't as old or ugly as they had seemed, though it would not have been fair to call them young or pretty.

Then Hardy himself canted for Chem. "We crossbreeds must dance together!" he said. "I want to thank you for making a marvelous case!"

Finally Gorbage came for Irene. He was half her height and scowling horrendously, but he was now clean and odorless and she could not refuse. The war had been convened to a party, and she wanted to keep it that way!

She whirled in the crowd, doing her version of the goblin stomp. Gorbage was a surprisingly good partner, for he had a sense of timing and motion. For an instant, she almost forgot that she was stuck in the jungle. "Hey, you got legs like my daughter!" Gorbage remarked, and she was embarrassed to find herself blushing.

"Want to know something?" Gorbage asked as he stomped in perfect time to the music, completely undisturbed about the difference in their sizes. "When I was dancing with one of those old hens, I did some high steps--and I swear my feet left the ground."

"Shouldn't they?" Irene asked, half bemused by the innocence of the remark.

"I mean I was flying--a little," he said. "I stayed up for two, three beats, instead of coming down on one. When I touched her, I had magic."

Irene paused. This was significant. "Are you sure? It wasn't just an extra high jump?"

"Sure I'm sure, maybe. But I could only get a little way off the ground without losing my balance, and nobody else noticed. I'm an old goblin; it's too late for me to learn good magic. But I guess the horserear was right--we do have half talents. And harpies have the other halves."

"That's amazing!" Irene said. This indicated that her private caveat about the significance of Hardy and Glory's match up was not well founded. The talents did not necessarily align, and if a goblin with half levitation encountered a harpy with half invisibility--well, she wasn't sure what would happen then, probably nothing. So at least to some extent, there were proper and improper match ups, and Hardy and Glory were a proper one. That was reassuring.

Irene believes this will bring peace to the harpies and goblins, and perhaps even civilize them. Irene, Chem, Grundy and the Gorgon prepare to leave, but not before Haggy gives Irene a feather whistle, so that she can summon the harpies if she ever needs them.

Pun Count: 262 by the end of Chapter 13.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 04:26

Namagem: Feb 14, 2011; The Magic Of Friendship

This is ridiculous.

Are you going to be doing the Apprentice Adept series, too? I've never read xanth before this, but I way WAY too much into that series of books. Apparantly it's one of Piers' lesser-read series. It's still really loving creepy, in retrospect, but at least it had some interesting ideas about parallel worlds between technology and magic.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 15:43

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I don't know. I never really read those as a kid.

Chapter 14 - back to Ivy. They have decided to head north, and Ivy is getting tired. They also have run into a small firebreathing dragon. It can fly, so it's not huge, but very fast. They spot a thicket they might be able to hide in, but the dragon is lithe enough to chase them. Stanley steps forward to defend them.

quote:

The notion was ludicrous, yet Stanley was ready to try, and it became more credible with Ivy's belief. A baby steamer could not hope to oppose an adult firebreather, but a baby steamer buttressed by the potent and subtle power of a Sorceress could indeed hope. But it would have helped had Stanley known about the support he had. As it was, he was indulging in an act of foolhardy courage.

Ivy enhances him greatly, and Stanley attacks. The two seem evenly matched, each trying to take out the other without using up their breath. The fire drake takes to the air, trying to attack from above, and Stanley isn't really built for this. Ivy orders Hugo to help him.

quote:

Hugo sighed inwardly at the imperatives of women, but he was stuck for it. He concentrated, and discovered again that he was smarter than he thought. "Fruit!" he said, another bright bulb, winking into existence above his head. "Chokecherries!" A fistful of dark red cherries appeared in his hand. He pelted the drake with them.

Several cherries bounced off the dragon's scales harmlessly. Even cherry bombs would not have hurt under these conditions. But then one landed in the mouth, which was just opening for another burst of fire.

Suddenly the drake was choking. He coughed, sending out a ring of fire, and bucked in the air. Clouds of smoke puffed out of his nostrils and ears, and he spun out of control.

(Pun Count: 263) Still, just one isn't enough, though it gives Stanley time to brace himself and prepare.

quote:

Hugo was ready. He conjured a handful of berries and threw them. One struck the drake in the tail section as he was picking up the next stone. He quacked with outrage and almost flew into a tree, but was indignant rather than injured.

"What fruit was that?" Ivy asked, surprised.

"Gooseberries."

(Pun Count: 264)

quote:

Hugo conjured an alligator pear and hurled it. The pear clamped its serrated jaws to the edge of the drake's wing, annoying the dragon.

(Pun Count: 265)

quote:

"I'll try currants," Hugo said. He conjured them and hurled a handful.

"But they're so small!" Ivy protested.

"Just watch." She watched. One currant fell in the drake's ear. Another snagged against one of his wings. They were alternating currants; between the two, electricity arced, shocking the dragon.

(Pun Count: 266) This sends the drake to land, with Stanley on his tail. Ivy wants to run, but Stanley is too engrossed in combat.

quote:

"I think I understand Stanley's position," Hugo said, for he retained the smartness Ivy had perceived in him before. "He knows the drake will come after us as soon as he recovers, and will attack us from the air. As long as the drake has control of the air, we're vulnerable. So we have to stop him now, while he's in trouble. Only then can we travel safely."

The drake hides on an island, but Stanley swims after him.

quote:

But there was a stirring elsewhere in the lake. "Look out!" Ivy cried, "I spy an allegory!"

Sure enough, the allegory had mistaken the swimming dragon for another of its kind and was hastening to make a comparison. Ivy had seen a picture of an allegory in her magic coloring book; it was green and had a long snout filled with teeth, and it lived in the water, but it wasn't a dragon. It was--well, she wasn't quite sure what it was, but it was.

(Pun Count: 267)

quote:

Stanley's head lifted and turned. He saw the allegory and blew out a worried puff of steam. He evidently did not know how to deal with a thing like this; indeed, few living creatures knew how to handle an allegory in its element. It was known that an allegory could turn a situation inside out without even touching it; that was this entity's magic. "Get away from it!" Hugo cried.

Stanley obeyed, swerving toward the shore. But a relevant was just coming up to drink. The relevant was huge, with four trunklike legs and a nose so long it reached right down to the ground. Naturally, that creature liked to poke that nose in other people's business. Stanley wanted no part of it and swerved again.

(Pun Count: 268)

quote:

But now he was traveling toward a hypotenuse who was basking in shallow water. The hypotenuse was enormously fat, with a huge mouth that opened into a triangle. When Stanley had turned and proceeded at an angle, and then turned to proceed at another angle, he had taken a line right toward the hypotenuse.

(Pun Count: 269) Hugo has no idea how to help Stanley now, and the drake is recovering.

quote:

"Hurry up!" she cried at Hugo. "Only you can save him! Do something fantastic!" She knew he could, because that was the nature of Nights in Shiny Armor.

Prodded by that, Hugo concentrated and produced--a bunch of grapes.

Ivy had terrific confidence in Hugo, but even she had to harbor a small and unfortunate doubt about this. "Grapes?"

"These are the grapes of wrath," Hugo said proudly. "I never was able to conjure them before. But they're dangerous to use. Are you sure--?"

(Pun Count: 270) Hugo hurls them, just as the dragon sets about igniting the mist around the lake.

quote:

A parody was just flying in. It had green wings and a squat, down-curving beak. "Wots this wots this?" it squawked and retreated in haste. "Polly wanna crackup!" This was not parody country at the moment.

(Pun Count: 271) The grapes hit the water, starting it boiling and steaming.

quote:

"They come from a mean vintage," Hugo agreed. "I had to be sure to get the right ones, because if I conjured sour grapes by mistake, it wouldn't have worked out very well."

(Pun Count: 272) However, Stanley's having trouble swimming now.

quote:

Hugo looked around. "Ah--there are some string beans growing on the bank. We can use them."

"You're brilliant, Hugo," she said. And of course he was, now.

They harvested a number of beans and unraveled them. Each was formed of a balled length of tough string--too tough to be cut by any normal knife or bitten through by any normal teeth. They twined the strings into a longer, even sturdier cord and paid it out into the water. Hugo used a beanpole to push this cord toward Stanley, who clamped his teeth on it. Then they reeled him in, and the fierce waves couldn't interfere.

(Pun Count: 274) They get Stanley out and find shelter. As they wait, they hear some odd zapping noises.

quote:

She got up. She knew there had been something, probably only a buzzing bottle fly, but she couldn't rest until she had placed it. This was her childish curiosity in operation, perhaps foolish, but quite compelling. After all, some of those flying bottles could be very pretty.

(Pun Count: 275) That's when Ivy notices a tiny hole in a tree trunk, going all the way through it. She finds a tiny spiraled worm hanging in the air past it. Then it zaps away. Hugo recognizes it: a wiggle.

quote:

"A wiggle?" Ivy asked blankly, wiggling her torso experimentally.

"The most terrible menace in Xanth," Hugo explained. "They destroy everything. See, this one has holed the acorn tree already! Don't stand in front of a wiggle, or it will hole you, too. We've got to get rid of it!"

Stanley steams the wiggle to death. Hugo decides they need to tell Humfrey...but he's a baby now and can't help. He's worried - they killed one, but wiggles always come in swarms. They listen and hear the sound of another wiggle. Oh yeah, there's a swarm.

Pun Count: 275 by the end of Chapter 14.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 16:51

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 15. Irene again.

quote:

"Does your husband swear?" Chem asked Irene as they walked on toward the Cyclops' cave.

Irene was glad to take her mind from the goblin and harpy action just finished. "Dor swear? As in bad words? Of course not! Why do you ask?"

"Something the Muse mentioned. Clio is in charge of history, and she told me how she writes the official history books that cover all of what goes on in Xanth. But she said there's a lot to do, and because history doesn't remain still, she can never quite catch up. So when the time came to proofread the volume on Dor's visit to the time of King Roogna, she had another Muse do it. Then, later, when Clio looked at the book herself, she discovered errors--typographical mistakes that weren't obvious, so the other Muse hadn't realized. Only Clio, who was conversant with the material, perceived those errors--but by then the volume had been finalized, as she put it, and it was too late. Once a volume has been finalized in Parnassus, it can never be changed, even if it's wrong."

Irene had not realized that such a volume existed; Dor had never spoken of it, though she had known about his visit to Xanth's past. "And the book said Dor swore?"

"Not exactly. It was on--I think she said page sixty, about ten lines from the top--she's very fussy about such details--where Dor was talking to his sword. He was using this big Mundane body, you know--that was how he got into the past, by entering the tapestry-figure that was there--"

"I know about the tapestry," Irene exclaimed. "I'd like to see that book!"

"Why, there's a copy of it at home," the Gorgon said. She had at last removed the hood and was using her regular veil again. "Humfrey keeps a complete file. I read it when it was new. Fascinating story, full of barbarian violence and sex and gross stupidities. I love that sort of book!"

"Hmm," Irene murmured. "I begin to comprehend why my husband did not tell me about this. I believe I'll visit you after our search is over, so I can read that story."

"Dor's in trouble!" Grundy singsonged gleefully.

"I read them all as they appear," the Gorgon continued. "There was one about your journey to Mundania, and another about the ogres, and of course there was one about Mare Imbri. I can hardly wait to see how this present business is written up! And Humfrey mentioned getting an advance notice about a future volume that tells of Jordan the Ghost and his own visit to the tapestry, or something--"

"Hey, I know Jordan!" Grundy said. "He helped Imbri beat the Horseman in the NextWave siege."

"What about Dor's swearing?" Irene asked, faintly nettled. She had thought she knew most of what was important about her husband.

"As I said," Chem resumed. "On that page, it is reported that his sword tells him he is undoubtedly crazy, and Dor says, 'Well, you're in my hand now. You'll do as I direct.' Or words to that effect."

"That's not swearing," Irene said. "You have to have a firm hand with the inanimate, or there's no end of mischief. Dor was simply establishing who was boss."

"But the text recorded it as 'Hell, you're in my hand'�an H instead of a W."

Irene grimaced. "You mean everyone who sees that text will believe my husband swore at his sword?"

"I'm afraid so," Chem said apologetically. "It seems a gremlin got into the works, and changed it the way gremlins do, and because of the circumstances of proofreading--"

"Oh, bother!" Irene said, irritated--and wondered whether that would be recorded as an obscenity, as the gremlin generated more mischief. But then she took heart. "Maybe not too many people will see it, so it won't do Dor's reputation too much harm. After all, I never saw it, so probably--"

"Oh, yeah?" Grundy cut in. "I happen to know that someone leaked copies of several of those texts to Mundania, including that one, so a whole bunch of people must have seen it!"

Black rage clouded Irene's vision, but she controlled herself so as not to give the golem satisfaction. "Not too many people who count," she amended.

"Oh," Grundy said, disgruntled. It was true that no one with any sense cared much about the antics of Mundanes.

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up," Chem said apologetically. "It was only one of a number of cases--"

"A number of cases!" Irene cried, outraged.

"They don't all involve Dor," the centaur said quickly.

They head on, but some kind of monster is waiting. If they didn't know better, they'd guess it was the Gap Dragon, from the sound. And it does seem to be the Gap Dragon.

quote:

No time now to marvel at impossibilities! Irene fished for a seed. "I'd better sprout that tangle tree!" she said. "Or a strangler fig."

(Pun Count: 276) The Gorgon protests that hte Gap Dragon mustn't be hurt. Chem suggests growing defensive plants until they can slow the dragon down enough for Grundy to talk to it. They want to know how it reversed the youth. The children are still safe, at least, from the looks of Irene's ivy.

quote:

Hastily Irene selected and threw down a seed. "Grow! Grow!" she cried. How could she have stood here talking while the monster was charging?

Impelled by the double command, the seed fairly burst into growth. Irene was aware that her power had been slowly fading during her separation from her talented daughter Ivy, but she still had enough zip for this. The plant took firm root, developed a thick, gray-white stem, and spread out a globe of whitish leaves. Overall, it was not large or impressive; it was squat and low and showed no thorns or threatening flowers.

"The monster'll crash right through that!" Grundy said nervously.

"I doubt it," Irene replied. "Stand directly behind it."

The dragon does, indeed, bounce off it, and its steam does nothing.

quote:

"What is it?" the Gorgon asked, impressed.

"One you should recognize," Irene said. "A cement plant."

"No, I don't know anything about cement plants," the Gorgon said. "Plants don't have eyes, so can't see me, so can't be turned to stone by the sight of my face. Otherwise we'd have a handy way to foil the dragon; we could hide behind any bush and turn it to stone."

(Pun Count: 277)

quote:

Meanwhile, the dragon had figured out that there was something funny about the plant and was circling around it, steaming angrily. Irene quickly tossed down several more seeds. "Grow!"

Ferns sprouted. "What can ferns do?" Grundy asked.

"These are chain ferns," Irene explained.

In moments the ferns developed metallic links, hooked up to each other, and formed a sturdy chain barring the dragon's progress.

(Pun Count: 278) The chain, however, is too low.

quote:

However, Irene had already started more plants growing. Several amazon lilies lashed at the dragon's feet, striking with their small spears of leaves. But the reptile's feet were too tough to be hurt by these, and progress was hardly impeded.

(Pun Count: 279)

quote:

But other plants caused more trouble. A firecrown landed on the dragon's head, heating it uncomfortably; a fishhook cactus hooked into several toes; a mountain rose grew in front, rising into a small red mountain, blocking the way while it continued to smell as sweet as its cousins by other names. A rattlesnake plant rattled, hissed, and struck at the dragon's nose; a star cluster heated the dragon's scales with a number of little burning stars; and scrub oak used little brushes to scrub at exposed anatomy. That merely tickled the monster.

(Pun Count: 285) Irene pulls a random seed and grows it.

quote:

The seed sprouted into a huge tree that soon made everything else look relatively small. "Oh, that's a dwarf yew plant," Irene said. But the dragon simply whomped around it, undwarfed.

(Pun Count: 286)

quote:

She tossed out another. It grew a number of cylindrical red fruits, and these exploded as the dragon passed, startling it. "A firecracker plant," Irene said, recognizing it.

(Pun Count: 287)

quote:

A third plant looked like a fern, but it soon uprooted itself and walked away. "Walking fern," Irene said. "Oh, I'm wasting some fine seeds here! If only I had time to classify them, so I knew what they all were, I could do something effective!"

(Pun Count: 288) Grundy begins talking to the seeds to find a useful one. However, the dragon is still coming. They flee up a slope, but the Gorgon's veil gets snagged, and they have to close their eyes for safety. She gets it back in place, but the dragon is now in range. Irene trees to get the local plants to grow as a wall, and it works briefly, but the dragon is not deterred long.

quote:

"I've got it!" Grundy cried. "A dragnet seed!"

Irene snatched the seed as adeptly as any harpy might have. "Grow!" she ordered it, flinging it at the reptile.

The seed sprouted in midair. It developed into a broad net whose material glinted in the light like steel. This was no ordinary plant!

(Pun Count: 289) The Gap Dragon is caught and thrown by the net, unable to melt or wilt it and unable to break it. Now Grundy can talk to it, but it has to settle down first. As they wait, they hear the sound of something zapping. The Gorgon and Chem are worried, and there is another zap sound. Then Grundy notices that the Gap Dragon has two ears - so it can't be the same one that Smash Ogre fought. It turns out that, in fact, there are two Gap Dragons. This one is female. She uses a secret entrance to enter the Gap and mate with the Gap Dragon every so often. She's hunting for her mate. Grundy explains what happens, and she wants to know how they expect her to mate with a baby. There's another zap, and the dragon recognizes the sound as a wiggle. Irene has no idea what makes a wiggle so bad.

quote:

Chem spotted two chunks of wood in the brush on the slope, picked them up, and stalked the sound while she talked. "The wiggles are tiny spiral worms that swarm periodically. Sometimes a century passes without an infestation; sometimes only a few decades. The last swarming was just about thirty years ago; my great uncle Herman the Hermit supervised the effort of containment, and lost his life in the process. It was hoped that the wiggle scourge had been permanently eradicated, but it seems not. Now we shall have to do the job over--and immediately."

"But all I heard was a little zap!" Irene said. "What's wrong with that?"

"That was the sound of the wiggle moving," the centaur explained. "It hovers in place for perhaps a minute--it's variable, or perhaps each individual worm has its own typical frequency--then zips forward in a straight line, a variable distance, but not far at a time. It--"

Zzapp!

"Oops--it's the dragnet," Chem said. "Grundy, quickly--explain to the female Gap Dragon--"

But the dragoness had been paying close attention to the zaps. She had evidently been around for the last wiggle swarming, or perhaps the one before that, and knew how to deal with wiggles. She pounced on the tiny worm that appeared near her, crunching it in her teeth. Then she spat out the remains, making a lugubrious face.

"They taste terrible, I understand," Chem explained.

"But they can be crushed to death--if caught at the right moment." She grimaced. "Grundy, see if we can work things out with the dragoness. I fear we have a problem that's bigger than any of us."

Grundy explains to the Dragon while Irene continues to not understand.

quote:

"So the wiggles travel in zippy lines," Irene said, irritated by her evident ignorance of something important. "What's wrong with that? Why kill an innocent flying worm that's just minding it's own business?"

"It's the way they travel," Chem explained. "They go through things, they leave holes. When they go through air, a vacuum is left behind; the 'zzapp' is the sound of that tunnel of vacuum collapsing. When they go through trees, the wood is punctured. When a person is in the way--"

"I begin to understand," Irene said, shuddering. "And there's no way to stop them?"

"Only by killing them," Chem said. "Their bodies are tough, yet can be crushed. I was going to squish this one between the pieces of wood, but the lady Gap Dragon chewed it instead. It's also good to put a wiggle between a rock and a hard place. However this was only one. Wiggles never travel singly; they're always part of a swarm of thousands, radiating out from a central nest. We must find and destroy that nest and must eradicate every individual wiggle who has already departed from it, because any one of them can get to where it's going, hibernate for decades, then form a new nest and swarm again. No one knows precisely what a wiggle is doing between swarms, but the life pattern of its species seems to resemble its individual one--mostly stasis, punctuated by sudden, calamitous movement. If too many wiggles escape, the next swarming could consist of many nests in different locations--"

Irene decides they need to organize a campaign to destroy the wiggles, and Chem notes that it this preempts their search.

quote:

"Ivy and Hugo!" Irene exclaimed, stricken. "My vision--the terrible, unseen threat--this is it!"

Irene decides she will save both Xanth and Ivy. They have to get the locals to help them, and someone has to reach the nest and destroy it. The Gap Dragon agrees to help. They don't have a salamander to light a magic fire, however, and they have no other way to light a one-way fire.

quote:

"The dragoness says she'll spare us," Grundy reported. "She was after us only because she was hungry. She's been so busy searching for her mate, she forgot to eat--"

"I understand perfectly," the Gorgon said. "Tell her we'll help her find her mate, if she helps us now. But tell her also about the youthening--"

"Her mate is with my child," Irene said. "Our missions coincide."

"She agrees. But she's very hungry."

Irene grows some beefsteak tomatoes for her and plants an acid seed to destroy the dragnet. The Gorgon discovers she can stone wiggles, though she must be careful not to get zapped in the face.

quote:

"Very well," Irene said. "Let's start organizing this. As I see it, we have three things to do. We have to fight the wiggles here, rescue the children--all three of them--and alert the rest of Xanth to the crisis. I think we can do all three at once, by splitting up our party. Gorgon, why don't you and the lady Gap Dragon work together here, stoning wiggles? She can carry you rapidly to and away from them, so you'll have the situation under control, and you can stone all the wiggles you meet. You can work better without the rest of us, because--"

"I understand," the Gorgon said. "I don't want a crowd of people around when I lift my veil!"

"But what about the dragoness' quest for the real Gap Dragon?" Chem asked.

"If she helps fight the wiggles here, that will free the rest of us to continue our search for the children, picking up their trail at the Cyclops' cave," Irene explained. "If we find the little dragon with Ivy and Hugo, as it seems we should, Grundy can tell him where to find the female dragon--so that will be all right." She nodded to herself. "You know, it becomes more plain why Humfrey said to preserve the Gap Dragon. There are interactions out here in the wilderness that we know little of, but that can relate intimately to the welfare of all Xanth."

"The total ecology," Chem agreed. "We ignore it at our peril. Everything relates."

Grundy explained to the dragoness, who nodded. She well understood the need and recognized that Irene's party could do a better job of tracking down the children more quickly than she herself could. Now that the edge had been taken off her hunger, she was a reasonable creature. Soon she and the Gorgon moved off, the dragoness' keen ears perked for more zaps. Dragons' ears were very special; she would locate more wiggles more rapidly than the others could.

"Now for the reinforcements," Irene said. "Grundy--we need you for translations, but now I think we need even more to get the word out about the wiggles. If we encounter the rejuvenated Gap Dragon before you rejoin us, we'll try to communicate with him somehow. Maybe Ivy has found a way. I'll grow an airplane plant you can ride to Parnassus, so you can tell the Simurgh. I'm sure the big bird will take it from there. Then you can return to us--"

(Pun Count: 289)

quote:

"The Simurgh doesn't permit others to fly over Parnassus!" Grundy protested.

"It's a risk you'll have to take. Try to give your message the moment she sees you; then it should be all right. She's a pretty smart bird, and remember, she can read your mind. So you can think loudly as you approach: WIGGLE! WIGGLE!"

Grundy agrees to try. He heads out on the plant, calling 'WIGGLE' as loudly as he can. Chem and Irene set off to find the Cyclops.

Pun Count: 289 by the end of Chapter 15.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 22:51

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

That is the tackiest retcon I've ever seen.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 23:57

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 16: Back to Ivy. She and Hugo are looking for a way to fight the wiggles.

quote:

"Here," Hugo said, conjuring two rockfruits. "Use these to smash it."

(Pun Count: 290) Ivy finds the results gross.

quote:

"It's the only way," Hugo said, conjuring two more fruits for himself. "My dad says you can only really stop wiggles by destroying their nest. But anyone who gets close to it gets holed by the wiggles. He says that's how the Invisible Giant died. He was a big, big man, but the wiggles played eighteen holes in him and he crashed."

(Pun Count: 291)

quote:

"Poor giant," Ivy said sympathetically. "I never saw him."

"No one ever saw him, dummy! He was invisible! So we just have to catch the wiggles as they come."

Ivy declares that they're going to destroy the nest.

quote:

"We'll figure out how!" she snapped imperatively. She was not aware of it, but at this moment she resembled her mother quite strongly, and not merely for the tint in her hair. "You're smart enough!"

This was of course an unfair assumption, but Hugo was used to it by now. He concentrated. It was amazing how smart he became when she insisted. "Well, we can't just walk up to it 'cause we'd get holed. Unless Stanley could keep steaming ahead and cook them in a channel--but no, he'd soon run out of water. We don't know how far away that nest is; it could be several hours' travel. Since nothing we know of can shield against the bore of a wiggle, any direct approach is doomed to failure."

Hugo was sounding more intelligent than ever before in his life, except when he served as defender at Hardy Harpy's trial. In fact, at this moment he resembled his father. Even Stanley, who really didn't have much truck with intelligence, sat up and took notice. But Ivy wasn't impressed. She wanted results, not dialogue. "Figure out a way!" she insisted. "You can do it if you really try--I know you can!"

"If we got there," Hugo said, "I suppose Stanley could steam the nest and cook the remaining wiggles. So the only problem is transportation. Now as I understand it, the wiggles radiate out on a plane; that is, they move out in a flat circle, not a sphere. They don't go up or down, just sideways. So it should be possible to approach the nest from above or below. Below is no good, for we can't tunnel through rock, but above--I wonder whether Stanley could fly there?"

Stanley tries, but he can't get off the ground. Ivy encourages him.

quote:

In response, the dragon pumped harder. His wings seemed to become larger and fuller and better webbed. For a moment his body lifted. Then it spun out of control and he plopped to the ground. Ivy's power, it seemed, had finally reached its limit.

"He's not a flying dragon," Hugo pointed out. "Those wings are vestigial. If he flew, he's probably crash and hurt himself."

Ivy considered that. She didn't want Stanley to hurt himself. She was very solicitous about pain. "Then find another way to fly," she told Hugo.

Hugo concentrated again. "I can conjure fruit-flies," he said. In his hand appeared a peach fruit-fly. It had fuzzy pink skin and two green leaves that flapped like wings. He released the peach, and it buzzed up and away.

(Pun Count: 292) However, they're too weak to carry more than themselves. Ivy insists Hugo find a way.

quote:

Hugo sighed. Intelligence was a mixed blessing, but he did privately enjoy being considered smart, and now he had become smart enough to realize how her talent worked. He could conjure good fruit because she believed he could. He was becoming handsome because she saw him that way. He was intelligent because she insisted that he be so. She was a little Sorceress; without her, he would once more be nothing. He was in a subtle but compelling manner dependent on her, and he wanted very much to please her. But he knew they could not safely fly to the wiggle nest. Was there some other approach?

He cudgeled his brain, but all it told him was that he had no answer. How could he arrange to accomplish the impossible? This group of three children simply lacked the resources to exterminate the wiggles.

Ivy and Stanley, meanwhile, hunt wiggles.

quote:

Hugo noted idly that the two wiggles seemed to be traveling on slightly divergent paths. Immediately his heightened intellect reasoned it out. Naturally the paths diverged, for the wiggles were radiating out from a common source. The farther they traveled, the greater their separation from each other became. It was an elementary matter to triangulate and estimate the location of the source, which really was not far from here. He and Ivy and Stanley could reach it readily--if they had any means of keeping from getting holed on the way.

He conjured a bunch of grape fruit-flies and watched them fly. Most of them were smaller than the peach and deep purple; their leaf-wings were much larger in proportion, which made them stronger fliers. A few were the opposite, being larger than the peach and bright yellow, with little leaves; they could not fly well at all. It all depended whether they were grape fruit-flies or grapefruit flies. Their differences in flying ability were a matter of elementary physics, which was the science of magic that Hugo was now beginning to comprehend. But the absolute weight that the small grapes could carry was no larger than that of the peach; by no stretch could the grapes support the weight of the little dragon.

(Pun Count: 293)

quote:

Well, perhaps if Hugo could conjure grapes-of-wrath fruitflies--No! That was definitely unsafe!

Several of the grapes spun dizzily and fluttered to the ground. They did not seem tired, merely confused. Others were unaffected. Why was this?

Hugo conjured a bunch of cherries. These had smaller but firmer leaves, and flapped more vigorously than the loose-leafed grapes, so they were actually stronger fliers. They pursued the grapes--and several of the former spun out of control, in the same place the grapes had.

Ivy returned, her rocks smeared with ick. "We got 'em," she reported with satisfaction.

The gist of a notion flirted with Hugo's consciousness. The fruit-flies--the wiggles--there was some connection, yet he couldn't pin it down. But he was smart enough to ask for the help he needed.

"Ivy, make me smarter yet," he told her. "Make me super-brainy-intelligent."

Ivy, like women of any age, did not properly appreciate the nature of her power. "Of course you're super-brainy-intelligent!" she said. "You're the smartest person in all Xanth. I just know it." And so she believed, now that she thought of it. Nights in Shiny Armor were supersmart, weren't they? And because she was a Sorceress, and had power that only Good Magician Humfrey would have believed--had he not been a baby--what she believed was mostly true. Hugo became almost too smart to be credible.

"The fruit-flies," he said, working it out. "They are being affected by an unseen agency that causes them to lose their orientation without physically damaging them. See, there go some more cherries."

"Cherries!" Ivy exclaimed, alarmed.

"No, these are cherry fruit-flies, not cherry bombs," he clarified. "These fly, they don't explode."

Hugo continues.

quote:

"But the disorientation effect is localized. There seems to be a region through which the fruits can not safely pass. And the nature of that region, judging from other small hints we have had, must be--a forget-whorl, of the kind my father described before he regressed to infancy."

"Is that bad?" Ivy asked, impressed.

"Yes and no. It is bad for us, for we must avoid it. Had we blundered into it, we should have suffered immediate amnesia." He knew about the whorls because he had been along when Good Magician Humfrey had told King Dor about them, back in Castle Zombie. With his present genius, he grasped their nature thoroughly. "However, we should now be able to use this whorl for our purpose, since it should have the same effect on the wiggles that it does on the fruits. This is not a certainty, but is a high probability. All we need to do is move that whorl over to the wiggle nest, and it will cause the worms to forget their purpose and perhaps forget even how to move. Then their menace will likely abate."

The problem with this is that they can't see it to move it, and it's very dangerous. Ivy is sure Hugo can figure it out, however.

quote:

He concentrated again. "It seems there are a number of whorls, drifting generally southward from the weakening forget-spell on the Gap Chasm. They seem to have changed their nature, causing total forgetting instead of just Gap Chasm forgetting. I could probably work out a rationale for that effect--"

"Stick to business," Ivy said firmly.

Hugo sighed again. "These whorls seem to associate loosely with the Gap Dragon, or his rejuvenated state, perhaps because his exits from the Gap are through a convenient channel--convenient for the whorls as well as for the Dragon. Presumably the Dragon is at least partially immune to the effect of the forget-spell, having spent all his life within it. So it may be no coincidence that there is a whorl in this vicinity. But this suggests two things--that the whorls are to some extent affected by the prevailing winds and the lay of the land, and that Stanley may have more influence over them than other creatures do. If we assume this is true, Stanley should be able to move a whirl by fanning it with his wings and blowing along natural channels in the terrain."

Ivy clapped her hands. "I just knew you could do it, Hugo!" she cried joyously. "Now tell me what you said."

Hugo translated. "We can blow the whorl to the wiggle nest."

They get to work. The whorl will protect them from wiggles, hopefully, as long as they stay together behind it. They have to stick by Stanley anyway, since otherwise the whorl might hit them, and he's the only immune one. Stanley leads them, using his wings to push the whorl along, while Hugo uses his fruit-flies to show where it is. Ivy, meanwhile, stays with them and ensures their powers do not fade. (She doesn't understand this, but Hugo does.) Hugo triangulates the nest's location via the wiggle zaps. However, the terrain makes it impossible for them to go straight there. This is a challenge - they have to move the whorl sideways without getting out from behind it.

quote:

Hugo cudgeled his brain yet again. Blow around a corner?

Ridiculous! Only if he had a baffle--and he had no way to get one. There were half a dozen close zaps every minute now; he would be holed in short order if he ventured from the shelter of the whorl. As it was, he had to watch his flying fruits carefully, because a number were getting shot down by the wiggles. If he misread the position of the whorl by confusing holed fruit with forgetted fruit, disaster could follow! Then it came to him. "Vectors!" he cried.

"Another menace?" Ivy asked, alarmed.

"No. Vectors are lines of force," he explained. "My father the baby was reading about them in a Mundane text once, while he was baby-sitting me before he got infanted himself." Hugo paused, smiling. "Now I can baby-sit him! If I ever get home." Then he returned to his concept. "Vectors are one of the types of magic that work in Mundania. Stanley's breeze represents one vector--pushing the whorl straight forward toward the next. The slope of the hill is another vector, pushing the whorl back. The vectors oppose, and therefore we can't make progress. But the slope isn't straight back; it's a little sidewise. So if we blow forward, and the hill pushes a little to the side, the net resulting force will be to the side."

"I'm glad you're smart," Ivy said dubiously. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

"I'll show you. Stanley, blow forward, steadily." The little dragon flapped his wings, blowing forward at the whorl. The whorl moved a little, as shown by the falling cherries, then nudged to the right. As the blowing continued, the whorl moved faster rightward.

"It's sliding to the side!" Ivy exclaimed, surprised. "Precisely," Hugo agreed. "This is slow but effective. As we make progress around the hill, the vectors will change, and we'll make better progress. We shall reach the nest--in due course."

They find the work of the wiggles as they round the hill - the entire hill is riddled with holes, and several trees have fallen. Hugo notices that some of the wiggles do actually go up, so flying wouldn't have worked, anyway. They spot the nest.

quote:

But now at last the nest itself was in sight. It was a dark globe as tall as a grown man, perched on the ground beyond a ravine. There was a haze around it, which Ivy realized was actually the mass of wiggles hovering in the region, before zapping on outward. Most of them did hang in a plane parallel to the ground, making the nest resemble the planet Saturn--but of course this was much larger than Saturn, which as everyone knew was only a tiny mote in the night sky that never dared show itself by day.

Overall, the thing was awesome and horrible. How unfortunate no one had seen it while it was growing and destroyed it before the swarming started.! But this was in the deepest depths of Unknown Xanth, where no one who was anyone ever went. So the nest had grown and grown, unmolested, perhaps over the course of thirty years. Now Xanth was paying for it!

It had taken time to skirt the hill and guide the forget-whorl this far. They were tired, for all three of them were children, and the day was fading. Still, there should be time to reach the nest, except--

"Hold up!" Hugo cried. "We can't go there!"

Ivy saw what he meant. The ravine was no minor cleft; it was an abrupt, deep fissure in the earth, extending down into darkness. It was too broad for any of them to jump across and too deep to climb through. To the sides it leveled out somewhat, at the near edge; but the far edge remained an almost vertical cleft as far as they could see. They could certainly roll the whorl into this ravine--but if it sank to the bottom, they could never get it out again.

They halted, afraid to go farther, lest the whorl fall in. "What are we to do now?" Ivy asked dispiritedly. She was a creature of optimism and she believed in her friends, but the blank far wall of the ravine was a mighty pessimistic thing.

Ivy wishes she was at Castle Roogna, and spots Imbri as she thinks about it. Hugo realizes they can send Imbri to get advice from their families.

quote:

But the mare shook her head sadly, her shadow-mane flaring. She projected her thought into a dream figure of a nymph, and Ivy heard the nymph's voice faintly in her head, like a distant memory. "Night is nigh, and I can no longer carry dreams by night. I can not carry messages from one person to another; I can only bring thoughts of each other. I will have time only to hint to your folks where you are." And Imbri was off, racing against the suddenly looming night.

Ivy shook her head. They were still stuck! They wouldn't be able to see the flying cherries in the dark, and so the whorl would drift away, and then the wiggles would come through-

What were they to do? Their gallant effort was about to collapse into disaster. They didn't even have time to retreat or any way to bring the protective whorl with them if they did withdraw.

Pun Count: 293 by the end of Chapter 16.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:18

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 17 - Irene again. Irene and Chem reach the Cyclops' cave. Chem draws an arrow as Irene goes to talk to Brontes. She asks where her daughter is. The Cyclops says they were friends and talked, but they left, heading northeast. Chem realizes they must have changed direction after meeting Glory.

quote:

Irene agreed. The Cyclops' story did, after all, align. "What about the sky?"

"My father the Sky--he strike me down, if--"

"Your father is in the sky?" Chem asked, approaching. "Is this a euphemism for--"

"He banish me, will strike down--"

"So you said," Chem cut in. "So your father is the sky, and he's angry with you. How long ago did you offend him?"

The Cyclops was at a loss. He started counting on his huge fingers.

"That many years ago?" Irene asked.

"Centuries," the Cyclops said, starting on his other hand.

"Centuries!" Chem exclaimed. "Your kind must live a long time!"

Brontes shrugged. "Sip of Youth water now and then; spring not far, for me. But not live long if I go out in sight of Sky!"

It was amazing how widespread knowledge of the Fountain of Youth was among the creatures of Xanth--while civilized people had remained ignorant. Yet this creature seemed unnecessarily restricted by his fear of the sky. "Have you ever tested it, this--this continuing animosity?"

Irene explains about the wiggles, and Brontes says he has to warn his brothers. Irene tells him to forget about the sky - if he comes out and isn't hurt, he'll know it's safe.

quote:

The monster's big eye brightened. "True. Long time." He put a foot out of the cave, then hesitated as if thinking of something else. "But if Sky do strike--"

"Then you won't have to worry about the wiggles."

Overcome by this logic, though it seemed he reserved some small doubts, the Cyclops stepped out of his cave, cowering against the light, afraid a thunderbolt would strike him down. But as the sunlight fell on him, nothing else did.

The sky has forgotten Brontes. Chem directs him to the wiggles, and he charges off to find his brothers after noting that the kids will be heading right into the swarm. They hurry onwards.

quote:

As she rode, Irene began to daydream. This was unusual for her, as she was a practical woman; she had to make sure Dor didn't innocently foul up the kingdom. But now, at this time of the double tension of peril to her child and to all of Xanth, she found herself dreaming. She must be more tired than she thought.

She remembered how she had participated in the defense of Xanth from the last great threat, that of the Mundane Next-wave--which was, of course, now the Lastwave, but old thought and speech habits died slowly--and had herself been King for a while, since Xanth did not have ruling Queens. The final key to victory had been Imbri the Night Mare, now honored by a commemorative statue, who had given her physical life in the cause and now was a spirit of the day, a day mare, bringing--"

"Mare Imbrium!" Irene exclaimed abruptly. "It's you!"

Chem knew she was there a few minutes ago. Chem translates for Imbri, now that Irene is paying too much attention.

quote:

"Imbri says Hugo and Ivy and Stanley are safe, but--"

"Stanley?"

"Remember, Glory and Hardy told us. The rejuvenated Gap Dragon. They are safe, but need help. They're going after the wiggle nest directly."

"That's impossible!" Irene protested. "No one can approach a wiggle nest!"

"So we thought," Chem agreed. "But Imbri says they are using a forget-whorl as a shield, and plan to use the whorl to wipe out the nest. We must promise not to reveal that she told us this, because she's not supposed to--"

"I promise!" Irene exclaimed. "But how--a forget-whorl--"

"I believe that could be effective," Chem said. "If the whorl does to the wiggles what it does to most creatures, they will forget how to zap, and cease to be a danger to the rest of Xanth. I suspect this is a stroke of genius, though how they ever thought of it--"

"No one can even see a whorl!" Irene protested.

"It is amazing," Chem agreed. "Imbri says Hugo is locating the whorl by using flying fruit--"

"But ail Hugo's fruit is rotten!"

"Not any more. Not according to Glory Goblin or Brontes the Cyclops. Imbri merely confirms that Hugo has perfected his talent, and is now a good deal smarter and handsomer than before. A woman has to be responsible."

"Or a little girl," Irene agreed. "I keep forgetting how much power Ivy seems to be manifesting."

"And the little dragon is fanning the whorl forward with his wings--"

"But the Gap Dragon's wings are vestigial! They're hardly noticeable! They can't--"

"They seem to have grown. I suspect your daughter has something to do with that, too."

The rest of the light dawned. "Only the talent of a Sorceress could account for all the changes we have noted!"

"A Sorceress," Chem agreed. "She was perhaps too close to you, so you didn't realize. Ivy will one day be King of Xanth."

"When my generation passes," Irene murmured, awed by the vision of it. This was more than she had hoped for!

Then common sense prevailed, "Three children can't take a risk like that!" Irene said. "We can't allow it! Those wiggles are the most deadly menace in Xanth! We've got to get them out of there!"

However, the wiggles are far too thick - all they can do is hope the kids survive.

quote:

Irene stifled her reply, as it could only have debased a long friendship and would not have rescued her threatened child. She wanted a live daughter, not a dead Sorceress!

They head for a nearby knoll, where the drake that faced off against Stanley is. Chem draws her arrow and Irene reaches for a seed, but then they hear a wiggle, which the drake burns to death. They're on the same side for now. Now they have to fight the wiggles. Chem finds two rocks to crush wiggles with.

quote:

Irene dropped a seed. "Grow," she said in a no-nonsense tone.

The seed sprouted into a hairy toad plant. The hairy toads goggled their eyes about, looking for bugs. "Snap up the wiggles," Irene told the plant. The toads grimaced and threatened to croak, apparently knowing how bad wiggles tasted, but seemed ready to obey.

(Pun Count: 294) Irene finds her own rocks and hopes Grundy gets to Parnassus in time. They are fighting, but need help. Imbri is off to warn Dor, feeling this is important enough to break the rules about carrying communications. However, by nightfall they won't be able to see the wiggles any more, and by morning they'll have spread so far they can't all be killed. They have to work fast. Irene remembers the whistle, and Chem uses it, hoping to summon the harpies and goblins. The Cylcops arrive to help, and they have good night vision, so that'll help when darkness comes. Still, three Cyclops, a drake, a woman and a centaur aren't enough. Xanthippe arrives on Xap, along with Xavier and Zora.

quote:

The witch dismounted and grimaced. "My son promised to get married tomorrow if I helped today," she said. "Besides, I don't want my exhibits getting holed. So when I heard the Cyclopes charging about, and fathomed what was up--"

Zzapp!

Xanthippe marched up to the wiggle and glared at it. "Drop dead," she said. The wiggle dropped dead.

Irene can also barely recognize Zora, who now appears alive and can speak normally.

quote:

It was Zora Zombie--so much restored by requited love that she looked virtually normal! Her hair was now thick and black, her flesh was firm and healthy and quite pleasing in contour, and her eyes were clear. Even her clothing was good; she no longer wore decaying rags. But she retained her undead immunity to minor injury. It was as if she had regressed from months-dead at the time Irene had first met her, to weeks-dead when Irene's group welcomed her, to days-dead when she fell in love with Xavier, and now was only hours or minutes dead. She had evidently been a lovely young woman when she died.

"A live girl would be dead by now," Xavier observed, satisfied. "Ain't Zora great? No woman alive is better than her!" He leaned toward Irene confidentially. "She ain't cold, neither. She's warm, now."

"Yes," Irene agreed faintly. One part of her mind rebelled at the grotesque nature of the zombie, but that was being driven out by the beautiful nature of the restoration. It was a miracle of a sort--a good sort.

Xanthippe directs her gi-ants, ma-moths and gigan-tics after the wiggles, and Xap starts crunching them up. The Furies arrive as well, but they're hear to help curse and scourge the wiggles.

quote:

Another wiggle came through. "Woe betide you!" Meg cried at it, "What did you ever do for your mother, who zapped away her last energy in order that you might someday swarm?" She raised her scourge and whipped the wiggle out of its hold.

The chocolate moose arrives to help, as do a flock of ducks and bed monsters, along with the foot-ball from Chapter 3. Irene is still worried as the sun sets, but that's when the Simurgh arrives.

quote:

PARNASSUS COMES!

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Simurgh!" Irene cried. "But it is almost dark, and many creatures will get holed--"

SEEDS OF LIGHT. And from the talons of the huge creature came a shower of tiny motes, each glowing like a little star. PERFORM, GOOD WOMAN, the bird directed.

"Grow!" Irene cried at them all. The stars grew, expanding into fat bulbs that radiated light everywhere. Some bulbs landed on the ground, illuminating it; others hung up in trees, casting wider flares. There were so many that the entire region became as bright as day. The problem of night was solved.

(Pun Count: 295) The Simurgh says that the wiggles going up are harmless - they'll head into space.

quote:

A host of small birds appeared, evidently brought by the large one. Each had an outsize beak. "Those are pinches," Chem said, her centaur education operating again. "Just what we need!"

(Pun Count: 296) They catch the mid-range wiggles, which are the only threats that can't be gotten by the ma-moths or the ground-based fighting. The yak and bugbear are helping now, too, and Hiatus has arrived on the flying carpet. He was helping look for Ivy when he found it, and he came by to help fight the wiggles by growing ears on them and making them too heavy. The Python arrives, along with the maenads, to help destroy the wiggles. The wild animals, likewise, are starting to help.

quote:

But she had plenty to occupy her attention on this side! The skirmish line was advancing now, and the wiggles were thick. The sound of the zzapps was constant. Creatures were getting holed, and losses were mounting. Chem's flank was blood-flecked where a wiggle had grazed it, and there was a maenad on the ground, holed through the head. In death the wild woman was rather pretty, and Irene felt a pang of regret for her. This was no child's play!

The Zombie Master is here likewise, raising zombies from the dead to fight. The Simurgh is using her telepathy to summon people. The centaurs are now arriving, with men on their backs to help. They're starting to enclose the wiggles and get closer to the center. The harpies and goblins are helping as well, working together for the first time in centuries. They can see the nest at the center, and Ivy, Hugo and Stanley going for it. Still, no one can get to them while the wiggles are going.

quote:

This seemed to be the limit of the contraction of the circle of closure. Any closer and it would be suicidal, because there would not be enough space between individual wiggles to allow a creature to stand. So they were at an impasse; they had contained the menace, but could not abolish it--and they were getting very tired.

They had to make a breakthrough soon, or their line would begin to collapse, and the wiggles would break out and win. All their available forces had been brought into play--and it wasn't enough.

Pun Count: 295 by the end of Chapter 17.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:57

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 18. Back to Ivy. With the light bulbs in place, the kids can see the wiggles clearly and will not be stopped by night. Still, they need to figure out how to cross the ravine.

quote:

Ivy squared her little shoulders and did what had to be done. "Hugo, think of a way to get across."

"You'll be a terror when you grow up," Hugo muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'm trying to think." He furrowed his brow and thought. "We must fill in the crack," he concluded, his intelligence operating once again. "We must make a ramp, so we can walk across."

Hugo decides to use fruit.

quote:

Hugo conjured a peach and tossed it through the whorl and into the crack. They heard a thunk as it struck bottom.

"We need more than that," Ivy pointed out. She was a practical girl, taking after her mother in that respect, and perhaps in other respects, too.

Hugo conjured several more peaches and threw them in. There were several more thunks from the unseen depth.

"Something bigger," Ivy suggested. "The biggest you have."

"That would be greatfruit," Hugo said after a moment's consideration. He conjured one--and the thing was so large it almost crushed him beneath its weight. He eased it to the ground, then shoved it forward. The thing rolled grandly into the crack and disappeared.

(Pun Count: 296) Hugo can't summon any bigger than that or he'll be crushed, at least unless they make a channel. The whorl drifts, almost leaving them vulnerable, and Hugo checks it for motion, then gets them back behind it. They begin to fill the channel with greatfruits, and Ivy notices the ring of people around them in the distance. They make a ramp from the fruits, crossing over the ravine with Stanley's wind. However, as they hit the center of the ramp, Fracto shows up. The wiggles can't hurt him, so he tries to blow the whorl off track. How he knows it exists I don't know. Stanley almost loses control of the whorl and they nearly get zapped by Wiggles, but Stanley exposes himself in order to stop the whorl's fall. Ivy gets Hugo to destroy Fracto with a pineapple. He'll reform in time, but not for a while. However, now Stanley has been zapped several times. He gets back behind the whorl, which nearly falls into the gap. He gets holed through the neck.

quote:

"Keep going, Stanley!" Ivy screamed desperately. "I know you can do it!" But water was welling in her eyes in much the way the blood was welling in the dragon's neck. With a great effort, she compelled her own belief. "You're too tough to be stopped by worms!"

Perhaps in her maturity. Ivy's magic would have been enough, but she was only a child. Stanley tried to lift his head, but could not. Still, he flapped his wings as hard as he could. The breeze was off, since he could no longer see the guiding cherries, and the whorl began to go astray.

"Blow left! Blow left!" Ivy cried, and the dragon aimed farther left and pumped desperately, though there were more holes in his wings and his eyes were glazing. The whorl drifted back on course.

It wasn't sufficient. Stanley was halfway down in the crack, straddling the mound of fruits, while the whorl was beyond it. His draft was losing effect.

"Climb out quickly!" Ivy cried. "You can do it, Stanley! You can do it!" But she could hardly see him through her tears.

Hugo kept the cherries flying, knowing there was nothing he could do.

Stanley made his six legs move. His head dragged on the ramp, getting smeared with greatfruit refuse, but his long, low body moved. He scrambled awkwardly up the slope and out, leaving a trail of blood.

The whorl drifted back, impelled by the slight slope beyond the crack. The vectors never gave up!

The dragon made it to the edge just as the whorl did. "Flap, Stanley, flap!" Ivy screamed, horrified. Cherries were falling all around the dragon, bouncing off his green hide.

Stanley flapped. But he was now in the middle of the whorl and wounded; he had little strength remaining. The breeze he blew was not enough to do more than hold the whorl in place.

Hugo's smart mind was still working, and now he perceived a new strategy. "Hold your wings out!" he called. "Walk forward!"

Stanley moves forward with the whorl, but he's in the middle of it. He's going to forget everything, even if he lives. Stanley leaps forward, onto the nest, and drags the whorl with him.

quote:

The zapping of the wiggles faded at the center. They still moved outward outside the nest, but no new ones emerged. The whorl had made them forget, and so they had become harmless. The nest had been nullified, thanks to Stanley's heroic concluding jump.

The three of them were safe from the wiggles--and so was Xanth, once the ring of people got rid of the remaining wiggles. That was no easy task, but it was at least possible to do.

Stanley lay astride the huge nest, as if he were mounted on a pedestal, his blood dripping down around it to the ground.

Ivy wants to rush to him, but the whorl will destroy her if she does.

quote:

Ivy clapped her hands. "Ooo, he lives! He remembers!"

"That doesn't necessarily follow--" Hugo said cautiously, his intelligence interfering with his emotion.

"Yes, it does!" she insisted. "It has to! Make it reasonable, Hugo!"

Hugo put his mind to work again. He could do some pretty impossible things when Ivy told him to. "Well, since he is the Gap Dragon and he has lived for centuries in the middle of the forget-spell that's on the Gap, we conjectured that he could be partially immune. But he could be completely immune, in which case--"

"Oh, yes! That must be it! He can't be forgetted!" She stood and looked at the dragon. "But he's hurt awful bad, Hugo. He's bleeding and everything! We've got to help him!"

Hugo knew there was nothing they could do at the moment. He looked about--and spied the Gap Dragon.

The what? Hugo blinked.

Then he saw, beside the full-sized dragon, the Gorgon. "Mother!" he cried, waving violently.

They cover their eyes for the Gorgon to approach.

quote:

There was also a whomp-whomp approaching. "How can the Gap Dragon be big--and small?" Hugo asked, then answered his own question. "There must be another of the same species."

"A lady dragon," Ivy said with female intuition.

The Gorgon veils herself and clears a path for Chem and Irene.

quote:

The Gorgon completed the distance and picked Hugo up. "You get lost like this again," she said severely, "and I'll show you my face!" Then she kissed him through the veil. "My, aren't you handsome! Whatever happened to you?"

"Aw, Mom, it was fun!" Hugo protested. "But we've got to help Stanley!"

"Who?"

"Stanley Steamer," Ivy explained, indicating the little dragon. "He saved Xanth--but he's hurt!"

"Oh, yes, of course." But the Gorgon stood aside while the big dragon whomped up, sniffed Stanley, then opened her huge jaws and took him in her mouth. She lifted him down off the nest and set him on the ground.

"But the forget--" Ivy protested.

"She's immune too," the Gorgon reassured her.

Oh, come on! She wasn't even part of that conversation! The Simurgh flies over and drops a feather for them. The Gorgon gives it to Ivy and tells her to touch Stanley's wounds with it. It heals each of them as it touches them. Soon, he is perfectly healthy.

quote:

"Hugo, how were you able to conjure good fruit?" the Gorgon asked her son, though her manner indicated she had an idea of the answer. This was the way of mothers.

"It's Ivy's fault," Hugo replied. "When I'm near her, I can do almost anything. I can even think straight. She's a Sorceress."

The Gorgon studied Ivy through her veil. "Yes, I believe she is."

"Just the way my father is a Magician," Hugo continued happily. Then he sobered. "Except--"

"He will be a Magician again," the Gorgon said. "It will take some time, of course, for him to grow--"

A woman approaches through the wiggles, unhurt despite the holes. It's Zora Zombie.

quote:

"You don't look like a zombie," Hugo remarked.

"True love has almost restored me to life," Zora said. "And perhaps my spine was stiffened when I looked at your mother's face."

"That's why I didn't recognize you!" The Gorgon exclaimed. "You have changed so much--"

"I am what every zombie could be, if conditions were right, Zora said. "Now I can even do my magic again."

"What's that?" Ivy asked.

Zora smiled depreciatingly. "It's not very useful, I'm afraid. I can make creatures age faster."

"Age faster?"

"When I turn on my talent, any animal will mature two years in only one year," Zora explained. "But since no one in his right mind cares to speed up his life--certainly the man I loved when I was alive didn't--" She frowned, then set that aside as dead history. "So I never had use for it."

But the Gorgon perked up. "Could you make a baby grow twice as fast as normal, without harming him?"

"Oh, certainly," Zora agreed. "My talent never hurt anyone, except that most people feel that aging is the same as hurting."

"If you did it near Ivy, you could age a baby ten times as fast," Hugo said confidently.

"Ten times as fast!" the Gorgon exclaimed. "Zora, you must come to baby-sit my husband!"

"Certainly, if you wish," Zora said. "I always like to help people, especially older folk like my parents. But isn't your husband already over a century old?"

"He is and he isn't," the Gorgon said. "Believe me, you will be welcome at our castle! You and Ivy together!"

That's when Chem and Irene arrive.

quote:

"Yes, he did," Irene agreed, dismounting. "And in the process, he helped show us how to move the forget-whorls out of our way so no one else will be forgetted. We shall make a statue of him."

"No!" Ivy cried, gazing wildly at the Gorgon.

Irene laughed, patting Stanley on the head. "Not that way," she reassured her daughter. "We shall carve it from genuine stone, and set it beside the statue of Night Mare Imbri, exactly as I envisioned. It will be on a pedestal, with the words HERO DRAGON in the base. He will be famous." She glanced across at the full-sized dragon. "His place in the Gap will have to be filled by a substitute for a while, until Stanley is able to resume his duties there."

"Oh, goody!" Ivy said, clapping her hands. "He'll stay with me! Stanley is my friend!"

"That too," Irene agreed, getting down to hug child and dragon together.

Pun Count: 296 by the end of Dragon on a Pedestal.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 12:28

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

I enjoyed large parts of that book. It'd be a fun light read appropriate for children of all ages if it weren't for all the weird sex and sexism.

And man, Fracto came out of nowhere. That's what happens when you hop all of Xanth around insulting all the local magical beings for no reason.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 15:04

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Yeah, the girl telling the boy to do everything for her (DEM BOSSY DAMES) goes from really off-putting to sort of funny when you make them both actual children instead of Piers's usual demi-adolescent lustbots. Especially when you make the little girl's bossing people around the most powerful thing in the book. Seriously, I'm surprised at how relatively not-awful Ivy's stuff was, and I'd completely forgotten that they actually remembered the whole "oh, I guess ladies can be Kings" loophole. Still, I maintain confidence that Ivy will never be in charge of the country because hey, Piers Anthony.
I wonder if Stanley counts as a Jumper-level good character if he can't actually talk.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 15:51

Tendales: Mar 9, 2012

I like how whenever Piers learns some random tidbit of information, like that there's such a thing as vectors, he has to make that the star of the story for at least one full chapter.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 19:21

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I actually agree - cut out most of the parts dealing with Irene's plotline and most of the parts involving Hardy and Glory, and it'd be a tolerable book. Sadly, Ivy does not long remain so.

Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn takes place two years after Dragon on a Pedestal. It stars Jordan the Barbarian, a ghost, and uses five-year-old Ivy as a framing device. Irene has just had a baby.

(Pun Count: 2)

quote:

Ivy was restricted, for no reason at all, to Castle Roogna, and of course it was overwhelmingly boring. Her mother Irene had recently gotten quite fat in the tummy, but kept right on eating and pretending it was wonderful and didn't seem to have much time for Ivy any more. To make things worse, her father King Dor had ordered a baby brother for her. Ivy did not need or want a baby brother. How could they have been so thoughtless as to order something like that without consulting the one most concerned? What good was a baby, anyway--especially a boy?

But now the infernal thing had arrived, and Irene had evidently celebrated by using a thinning spell, because she was suddenly back to normal weight, but she still had next to no time for Ivy. To heck and damnation with all cabbage leaves! Even drear Mundania, she decided, could not be worse than this.

For a time, she played with the items sent by her pun-pal, Rapunzel, who had very long hair and was similarly confined to her castle. Ivy was still too young to read and write, so they exchanged small objects, and that usually worked well enough. But there was only so much a person could do with puncils and hot-cross puns, and Ivy soon tired of them.

(Pun Count: 5)

quote:

She found herself watching the magic tapestry in her room for hours on end and more hours sidewise; the idiot cloth had become her amusement of last resort. Its moving pictures showed everything that had ever happened in the Land of Xanth. But the pictures were fuzzy, and she wasn't much interested in history, anyway. It was so much more fun in the jungle, playing with clouds and tanglers and gourds!

As the tapestry played over a sequence several hundred years in the past. Ivy became aware of company. One of the castle ghosts was in the room. In fact, it was watching the tapestry.

It is Jordan, who is watching his own history. He lived four centuries ago. He thinks it was a great adventure, but he died during it and can't quite remember.

quote:

Oh. "I'm about to die from boredom," Ivy asserted.

"Oh, no," Jordan protested. "You're a Sorceress. You will grow up to be King of Xanth."

This was nothing new, but Ivy's interest increased. Now Jordan was a fully formed man, partly white, partly translucent, fairly large, young, and handsome. A white lock of hair fell down partway over his right eye, which was also white. Most ghosts were white; Ivy wasn't sure why. "How did you die?"

Jordan shook his head. "I can't quite seem to remember. I've been dead a long time."

"But that's easy to remember!" Ivy exclaimed. "Dying is a big deal, like getting born."

"Do you remember getting born?"

"Of course not. Animals get born. I was found under a cabbage leaf. I should have kicked over the cabbage behind me, because now they've found Dolph under it and they're making him my baby brother." She pouted, as the memory rankled. "If I'd been smart, I'd have sneaked out at night and thrown all the cabbages into the moat before Dolph arrived. It's probably all his fault I'm grounded."

"Yes, boys are a lot of trouble," the ghost agreed. "Almost as much trouble as girls."

"What?"

The ghost drifted away from her, realizing that he had said something provocative and unwarranted. Everybody knew that boys were much worse than girls. But Ivy decided to forgive him his transgression, because even ghostly company was better than none. "Tell me the adventure of your life."

"Well, I don't quite remember that, either. I know it was exciting, and that there were monsters and magicians and swords and sorcery and beautiful women, but the details have fogged out."

"Then how do you know your life is playing on the tapestry now?" Ivy asked alertly.

"I recognize bits of my life when I see them played. Fighting a dragon, kissing a woman--it begins to come back. I know I was there."

Jordan assures Ivy it wasn't the Gap Dragon.

quote:

"Good." Because the Gap Dragon had become Ivy's friend, she didn't want anything bad to have happened to him, even four hundred years ago. The Gap was now being patrolled by Stacey Steamer, the female of his kind. Eventually Stanley would grow up and return to the Gap, but that was long ago in the future and she didn't worry about it. "Who'd you kiss?"

The ghost concentrated. "Several beautiful women, I think, but the last was most. There was a cruel lie, and I died. So I hate her. But I found a better woman after I died, so maybe it's all right after all."

This was getting downright fascinating! "How can you find a woman after you're dead?"

"A dead woman, naturally. A ghost, like me."

Ivy had always known the ghosts of Castle Roogna, but hadn't thought to question them about their lives. "What happened to her?"

"She's still here, of course. She's Renee."

Renee is a quiet, singing ghost. Jordan would marry her, if he were alive. Ivy tells him ghosts can't live again, but he reminds her that Millie the Ghost did.

quote:

"That was prehistoric," Ivy said shortly. "Back when Good Magician Humfrey was still practicing as an old man. He helped bring her back to life. Everybody knows that. But Magician Humfrey isn't animating ghosts any more, and nobody else knows how. How can you live again?"

"Well, my talent is healing," Jordan said. "So if my bones were found and brought together, maybe--"

"Where are your bones?"

"I've forgotten, if I ever knew," the ghost confessed, abashed.

Jordan can't remember what the lie was, either. They decide to watch his life. They see a man riding a giant snail, but Jordan can't remember where it's going. They can see some kind of giant bird shadow, and Ivy decides she wants to know all of Jordan's story. They just have to clear up the tapestry first.

quote:

Ivy contemplated the tapestry. "It's gotten sort of grubby over the centuries," she said. "And I guess my using it to wipe off my hands before dinner doesn't help much, either." Adults always had these pointless rules about clean hands for eating, so Ivy knew it really wasn't her fault, but now she wished she had wiped her hands somewhere else. "Maybe if we can clean it off, it will have better pictures."

They tried. Ivy fetched a bucket and water, but found she couldn't scrub the tapestry clean. The pictures were permanently dull, even when wet. "We need something better to clean it," she said, frustrated.

They tested everything they could think of, but nothing helped. Ivy was getting dangerously close to annoyance, which was another mood she had inherited from her mother. But she was determined to find a way. "Good Magician Humfrey would know, 'cept he's pretty young now," she said. "Still, he's probably better than nothing."

But Ivy's grounded, so she can't head over to the Good Magician's castle easily.

quote:

Fortunately, Jordan had a notion. "There's an old night mare shoe in the cellar," he said. "With that you could get in and out of the gourd."

(Pun Count: 6) Jordan leads her to the rusty horse she, which she'll have to use to physically enter a gourd. There's one near the castle wall which no living people know about, and Jordan takes Ivy to it.

quote:

"I know." Ivy had learned about peepholes recently; it seemed her mother had been perturbed to learn that Grandpa Trent had been into one and somehow had thought it was Ivy's fault. Possibly the grounding had something to do with that. "Now how does--?" She extended the bent shoe toward the gourd.

"Wait!" Jordan cautioned, in the manner adults had. "I think you need a map, to--"

But it's too late. Ivy enters hte gourd, falling. She lands on a giant marshmallow.

quote:

She was in a candy garden. Lollipops grew from the ground, and the weeds were licorice. She started to pick a pop, then hesitated; she was inside the gourd. If she ate anything, would she be able to leave? She wasn't sure; the gourd had funny rules. So she exerted supreme control well beyond the call of little-girl duty and left the candy alone. She had a feeling she would regret this the rest of her life, but she couldn't take the chance.

Ivy heads down the path until she finds a wooden house. No one answers the door, so she heads inside...and finds it full of bugs.

quote:

Ivy used the scream she had saved. She tried to use the mare shoe to fend off the bug, but the shoe missed and struck the wall instead. Shoe and hand sank through the wall, and Ivy stumbled after, stepping through as a ghost might.

She blinked in bright sunlight. She stood on a beach, just outside a gourd. Across the water she saw a large island, and near the island was a raft with a centaur standing on it. That must be Centaur Isle, down at the south of Xanth. She had come a long way!

She heads back into the gourd, and heads out of the house. However, now the garden is full of vegetables, especially spinach. She finds a lake of castor oil/

quote:

Instantly she spat it out. This was the worst yet! It was castor oil--the stuff used to lubricate rolling castors, the bane of all children.

(Pun Count: 7) Ivy tries to figure out how she can get out of the gourd, and touches the shoe to the lake, which leaves her in sight of Humfrey's castle. Now she just has to get in.

quote:

First she had to cross the moat. She looked around. Under a spreading tree she found several small stones. "Stepping stones!" she exclaimed, recognizing the type.

She picked them up, but they were hard to hold all together, so she reached for a big green leaf to wrap them in. But lo, it was not a leaf; it was the wing of a giant luna moth. The creature was motionless, and just dangled when she picked it up; she realized reluctantly that it was dead. A tear squeezed from her eye; she hated to see pretty things die.

She found some blanket moss, set the stones, moth, and mare shoe on it, and carefully drew up the corners of the blanket so she could carry it as a bundle. She saw herself as a fairly resourceful child, so of course she was. Then she walked to the moat, held the bundle in one arm, and used her free hand to cast the first stone.

The stepping stone plopped onto the surface, hobbled, expanded somewhat, and settled firmly, the top of it just above the water. She tossed a second one a little farther out, and it settled similarly on the surface. When she had a somewhat irregular line of several--for stepping stones never settled regularly, no matter how accurately they were placed--she stepped carefully on the first. It gave slightly but supported her weight; that was, after all, its nature, enhanced by her talent. Incorrectly placed, a stepping stone could become a stumbling block, but she had set these down properly.

(Pun Count: 9) She makes it across with one stone to spare. She finds a dark alcove, which she ignores, and then a blinding brightness around a corner. She makes herself smart enough to figure out how to get past.

quote:

Ivy returned to the dark alcove and reached inside. Sure enough, there was a dark lantern. She brought it out, and its darkness spread all around her, converting day to night. Fortunately, she was able to see a little dim light ahead, around the corner, and she headed for that.

(Pun Count: 10)

quote:

As she rounded the corner, the effulgence surrounded her--and was met by the darkness radiating from the dark lamp. The two struggled and canceled out, and an approximation of normal daylight returned. A small globe of darkness remained about the lantern itself, into which her arm disappeared, while the bright lantern remained too bright to gaze upon. But in between were the shades ranging from night to day. If Ivy had been of a more philosophical bent, she might have realized that life itself was like that, with the impossible extremes of good and bad at either side and many gradients between, through which normal folk navigated with indifferent success. But she was as yet too young for such a thought, so she shoved it aside and proceeded through the shades of gray until she rounded another corner. Then the dark lamp became too dark, blotting out everything; she set it in an empty alcove and went on.

But a new threat materialized. A small winged cat screeched and circled above her. When she tried to take a step, the cat circled lower, claws extended. This was too little to be a cat-bird; it was a kitty-hawk, and it would not let her pass.

(Pun Count: 11)

quote:

She looked in her blanket bag, where there was one stone, the dead moth, and the mare shoe. She might throw the stone at the creature, but she doubted she could score; the throwing arm of a five-year-old girl wasn't strong. So she left that stone unturned. She needed another way.

(Pun Count: 12) The creature won't get too close to her because of the brightness, and Ivy watches it carefully.

quote:

Ivy watched the creature, noting the separate components of its body. The hawk-wings were of the bird kingdom, with brown feathers, and there was a feathered tail to match; the head and legs were of the cat kingdom, with white teeth and claws. She wondered which kingdom was dominant. Did the creature lay eggs or give live birth? Animals had more direct and crude ways of reproducing themselves than people did; maybe cabbages didn't grow for animals. She blushed to be thinking such naughty thoughts, but still, she was curious. She knew that some creatures birthed and others hatched, or maybe it was the other way around, and people arrived under cabbage leaves, and then there was the matter of the storks--

Ivy frowned, because that reminded her of Baby Brother Dolph again. Too bad the stork hadn't brought him, because then there would have been a chance of dropping the bundle into a nest of cockatrices, or maybe onto a bad-tempered needle-cactus. She could almost see the needles flying out, striking the little cockatrices, who naturally glared balefully about, turning everything around them to sludge. Or was it stone? Anyway, the little birdbrained lizards were getting stabbed by flying stone needles, and it served them right.

Ivy caught a flicker of something just off the edge of her vision. It looked like a swishing horse's tail. The day mare! Imbri had brought her the nice, violent day-dream, but now the mare had to gallop off to her next delivery.

(Pun Count: 13) Ivy, meanwhile, has intensified the cat and bird natures of the kitty-hawk, causing it to fight itself. She focuses on it more, making the fight worse and worse, until it crashes into the moat. She heads onward.

quote:

Ivy walked on, glad to be past the kitty-hawk but sad how that had happened. She was still looking for the door into the castle. She came to a small plot that contained a single headstone. It was in the shape of the head of an old man, with sparse stone-gray hair and white whiskers. It looked almost alive, and became more so as she contemplated it; its stony gaze was fixed on her. Slowly one mineral eye closed in a wink.

(Pun Count: 14) It takes the shape of the head of whoever's buried near it, and it can talk.

quote:

"Last year I was planted near a lovely, dead, young woman; you should have seen me then! My surface was like polished alabaster, and my shape was beautiful."

"That's nice," Ivy said, losing interest. "I've got to go now."

"Ah, but if you try to pass me, I'll yell, and you'll get the brush-off," the headstone warned.

Ivy doesn't believe it, but when she tries to enter, it shouts and a giant hairbrush comes to smack her. (Pun Count: 15) She backs against a wall, keeping it from reaching her butt, and it flies away again. Ivy has to silence the headstone. She digs a hole and buries the luna moth near it, causing it to take on the shape of the moth's head. Now it can't take, and she can enter the castle. Zora Zombie greets her and asks why she didn't use the carpet. Ivy explains that she's there on business, since she doesn't want to mention being grounded. Ivy's been helping Zora to age Humfrey. He is now around her size and older than her.

quote:

"No, this is a business call," Ivy repeated. Humfrey she had to trust, even if she didn't want to. He knew everything anyway, or seemed to, that being his talent. Physically, he was now a child, so perhaps would not be inclined to betray her to the grown-ups. "I'm grounded for no reason and had to sneak out."

Humfrey smiled in a too knowing way. "No reason, as you define it, being the leading of your grandfather in a merry chase through tangler, jungle, and gourd, all because you didn't stay on course or heed his warnings, and causing the Night Stallion to shoot fire from his nostrils when he saw the damage to his haunted house set?"

(Pun Count: 15)

quote:

"That's what I said," Ivy agreed uncomfortably. "No reason at all. So let's make this quick, before I get in trouble for even less reason if they discover I'm. gone. I need an Answer."

"That will be one year's service," he informed her. "In advance."

"Well, I've already added more than that to your life by enhancing Zora when she ages you, so we're even. And if I do it much more, you'll owe me another Answer."

Humfrey stared at her belligerently. "What kind of logic is that, woman?"

"Female logic, of course," she informed him. "Want to make something of it?" Ivy already had a fair notion how to handle men, even those who could not readily be charmed.

"Um, no," Humfrey said. "Some distant day you're going to be King of Xanth, may the Demon have mercy on that day."

"I already know that, dummy, so watch your step." She had learned about firmness from her mother, just as she had learned about pedestals from her father. It would never do to let any man get the upper hand. As Irene had muttered ominously, there was no telling where he might put it.

Ivy explains her need to clean the tapestry.

quote:

Humfrey pondered a moment, then brightened. "The Big Book should have it," he exclaimed. Ivy knew that some people claimed there was no such thing as a Big Book of Answers for all Questions, but those people had never seen Humfrey's study. The Good Magician went over to a table where a huge tome rested, and he scrambled up on the high stool to reach it. He turned the ancient pages. "Good thing I've learned to read again," he grumped as he pored over the fine print. "Tables...tadpoles...tailspins...talismen...tangle trees...tapestry! Nature of. History of, Present Location of. Abuse of--aha! Cleaning of!"

"That's it!" Ivy exclaimed.

"Quiet, woman, while I'm researching," he snapped.

Ivy opened her mouth to retort suitably, but decided to restrain herself until Humfrey produced the Answer. Timing was important when dealing with men, as her mother had said. Anyway, it was no insult to be called "woman." She was glad he hadn't paused to read the entry under "Abuse of" because that very well might mention the wiping-off or laying-on of hands on its surface, which would be awkward to explain.

"Use crewel lye," he read. "Recipe as follows: half a tumbler of--"

"Wait, I can't remember a whole recipe!" Ivy protested. "I have trouble remembering the recipe for hard-boiling an egg! I need a written copy--and no big words." Ivy was learning to read, but preferred words like "Fun" and "Joy" to ones like "Delinquent" or "Punishment."

Humfrey blew air through his cheeks, exactly as he would when a century or so older. "Then fetch me that copy-cat."

(Pun Cpunt: 16)

quote:

Ivy looked where he pointed. In a corner sat a creature like a contracted caterpillar, with only four legs, one tail, and several long whiskers. It looked rounded, furry, and soft, but evinced an attitude of independence and aloofness.

(Pun Count: 17) Ivy hast trrouble picking it up, but manages to get it to follow after her, since it copies her. She has to get up on the table to get it to come, though. The cat sits down on the recipe, then stickss out its tongue, which is a sheet of paper. Humfrey tears it off and gives it to Ivy.

quote:

Naturally, Ivy got ready to argue, but realized that she wanted to go away, now that she had what she wanted, so she kept silent. Sometimes the directives of men had to be obeyed, when they chanced to be correct, annoying as that was. She scrambled down off the table and left the little Good Magician to his reading. He had become entirely distracted by the text before him, which happened to be taxidermy, while the copy-cat continued to extrude copies of the crewel lye recipe. A copy fell down before him, obscuring his text, at which he stared at the cat speculatively. "Very interesting techniques here," Humfrey murmured. "I wonder--" but at that point the cat hastily jumped clear of the text, not having the same interest in studying, or in being a subject for, taxidermy that Humfrey had.

The Gorgon greeted Ivy as she departed. The Gorgon was an elegant, tall, veiled woman with snake hair, the Good Magician's wife and the mother of Hugo, Ivy's friend. "Won't you stay for a cookie, dear?" she asked.

Ivy started to decline, but the Gorgon produced the biggest, loveliest, most aromatic punwheel cookie imaginable, and Ivy was overwhelmed. She realized that the Gorgon was probably lonely for living female company, so it would be only proper to visit for a while. She decided to stay for one cookie.

(Pun Count: 18) Eventually, Ivy heads back to Castle Roogna.

quote:

But now she could clean the tapestry and get Jordan's complete story. All she had to do was use the recipe to make the cleaner. Fortunately, the ghosts knew where all the supplies were. Ivy got a pot and some lye and some fat and stuff and cooked them together according to instructions. The lye was strong stuff that tried to burn her little hands, but the recipe told her how to be careful. Jordan's friend Renee Ghost helped Ivy to read the more difficult parts of the instructions, so that she made no mistakes. She had to say several spells along the way, to turn the lye into the crewel, but finally she had a bottle of the elixir.

She got a sponge, soaked it with her lye mix, and wiped it across the surface of the tapestry. The result was startling. There was a swath of much brighter and clearer images. The stuff was working!

Ivy went carefully over the entire tapestry until it fairly shone. The moving pictures looked so real she almost believed she could walk into them. "Oh, yes!" Jordan exclaimed. "I can see every detail! The memories are flooding back!"

Jordan watches the tapestry, and begins to tell his story.

quote:

She settled back before the tapestry, watching, while Jordan concentrated on the beginning of his story. With Ivy's help, because the ghost could not make the tapestry respond by himself, he got the correct sequence of pictures to form. Then, as the pictures showed the action, Jordan narrated the story as he remembered it. He skipped over the dull parts, such as sleeping, and lingered on the good parts, such as fighting monsters and kissing fair maidens and encountering strange magic. It was a genuine tale of Swords and Sorceries and Goods and Evils and Treacheries, and Ivy was entranced. She loved tales with guts. She watched and heard the caustic yarn as if she were there herself. She thrilled to the Thud and Blunder of it and suffered fervently with the revelation of the UnKind Untruth.

(Pun Count: 21)

Pun Count: 21 by the end of Chapter 1.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:39

drunkencarp: Feb 14, 2012

The original first chapter of Crewel Lye, which sets up Ivy getting grounded, is basically her wandering around encountering a list of like fifty puns. Anthony's editor finally said enough's enough and axed the entire chapter.

I know this because once I really enjoyed these books, to the point of owning the tie-in book Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 21:02

Robindaybird: Aug 21, 2007; Neat. Sweet. Petite.

drunkencarp posted:

The original first chapter of Crewel Lye, which sets up Ivy getting grounded, is basically her wandering around encountering a list of like fifty puns. Anthony's editor finally said enough's enough and axed the entire chapter.

I know this because once I really enjoyed these books, to the point of owning the tie-in book Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth.

I wonder how many editors he went through.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 21:34

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

So this is where the storks start being a thing.

And sadly, where Dolph also starts being a thing. (Dolph is terrible.)

# ? Aug 23, 2013 23:40

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

From Chapter 2 on, the book is a first person narration by Jordan.

quote:

I believe it really started when I came of age. It was the fashion in those days for a young man to prove himself by indulging in some fantastic exploit; then he could marry and settle down, having earned his fame.

I had a wonderful girlfriend, Elsie, who could turn water into fine wine just by touching it with her little finger, and she was pretty and sensible, and she wanted to get married and start a family right away. I just wasn't ready for that yet; it sounded so dull. I wanted adventure!

This was getting very difficult. Elsie really wanted me to stay, and she didn't care about heroic tradition, and she was certainly attractive. We were having some awkward scenes. I promised her that, after I had my adventure and became a hero, I would return to her, but this was really a lie, because we both knew I would never get tired of adventure. She promised me that, after we started a family, she would let me go out and travel in Xanth and maybe slay a dragon or two, but we both knew that was also a lie, for a family never lets go of a man. I wanted to sow my wild oats first; that way I would be sure of them.

Elsie really wasn't very keen on wild oats; I'm not sure why. So finally we made a deal: Elsie would have one night to show me how nice tame oats could be and demonstrate the advantages of family living, to persuade me to stay. If she couldn't, then I would travel. It seemed fair enough.

(Pun Count: 22)

quote:

Little did I know what kind of night she planned! I was really pretty naive in those days and knew a lot less about a lot of things than I thought I did. I supposed she was going to feed me good food and treat me well and talk to me convincingly about the advantages of the settled life. Instead she--well, I'm not sure I should say much about this to--in fact, I think we'd better just skim the pictures on past that night and--No? But I could get in trouble with your folks if I said too much about--well, all right, I'll describe just a little of it.

Elsie met me wearing a gown that--well, I had known she was pretty, but hadn't quite realized how pretty she could be when she really tried. I found myself staring at--at the way she breathed. And the way she sat. Then she took me inside her, uh, bedroom, and I followed her and found myself staring at the way she walked. Then she--this is really pretty dull, so maybe we should skip this scene--No? Um, well, she showed me how to send a message to the stork, and I agreed that this was all the adventure I ever needed, and we finally fell asleep.

Remember: Ivy is five years old.

quote:

But in the morning I remembered about the other type of adventure, exploring strange places and fighting strange creatures, and I knew I had to try that first. Elsie was still asleep, half smiling, and I felt really terrible as I dressed and buckled on my sword. But I didn't even kiss her; I just sneaked out of the house like a grounded child and started walking south, toward the center of Xanth, where the real action was supposed to be.

Guilt followed me like a lowering cloud, because my promise during the evening had turned out to be another cruel lie, and I almost turned back again. But the lure of the adventurous wilds drew me on and it was stronger than my guilt.

Somehow I didn't feel very bold or heroic at the moment. I felt more like a coward, for I had not had the courage to wake Elsie and tell her honestly, "I'm going, gal, sorry about that." She would have--well, women can be very difficult about that sort of thing. And once I was fairly on my way, I lacked the courage to return and apologize. Some heroes aren't very courageous or heroic inside.

But now I was committed and I had to look forward instead of back. Already I had learned a lesson of life: that the sweetest, saddest thing is what-might-have-been. I suspected I was doing wrong and would pay some hideous price for it, but still I kept doing it, ashamed to confess that wrong.

Jordan is from the village of Fen, from what will be called the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen. (Pun Count: 23) He has decided that he will go to Castle Roogna, but he needs a ride.

quote:

That was a problem. There weren't any centaurs in our isolated region of Xanth, and dragons did not make good steeds--they tended to conspire to carry their passengers inside their bodies instead of outside--and I was afraid to fly with a flying creature; never could be quite sure where one of those might drop you off. I knew there were sea-horses in the sea, but I was trekking inland. There was a man in Fen Village who made hobby-horses, but I hadn't thought to check with him before starting off. In any event, his horses didn't really carry people, they just seemed to. What was I to do?

(Pun Count: 24) Jordan decides he'll have to toughen up his legs, and he realizes he's not really enjoying this so far. He almost turns back, but finds he can't admit he was wrong.

quote:

I think now, after four hundred years as a ghost to reflect on philosophical matters--ghosts are better with intangibles than they are with tangibles, because they are intangible themselves--that women are more practical than are men, and the reason that women have most of the sex appeal is to enable them to lure men away from the foolishness they are otherwise prone to seek. Certainly my adventure, when considered as a whole, was a consummate exercise in folly, and would have been even if it hadn't cost me my life. I could have had night after night with Elsie; instead I courted--and won--disaster. If vanity be the name of woman, folly is the name of man!

Jordan heads onwards. He scrounges up some sugar sand and beer, "the true barbarian beverage." (Pun Count: 25) He hears the sound of rattling chains, and becomes scared, which he realizes means it must be magic, for he was not afraid of most physical things. He goes out to hunt it down, for he has the sword but lacks the sorcery. He nearly gets grabbed by a tangle tree, but he's a good enough swordsman to handle it, especially since he heals himself. He decides to stop chasing the chain, since it is clearly trying to lead him to his death, but remains interested.

quote:

I returned to my camping spot. Sure enough, the rattle followed me, coming closer. But on the way I foraged in the darkness for some rustleweeds and centipede grass, and I set them at my place under a chocolate-smelling cocoa-nut shell. Naturally they rustled and scrambled faintly, so that it sounded as if a person were lying there somewhat restlessly, as he would if disturbed by a rattling chain. Then I sneaked silently away--I was good at that sort of thing--and circled widely around behind the chain rattle.

(Pun Count: 27)

quote:

Sure enough, I fooled it. Barbarians are very cunning about such things. I watched as it approached my campsite, wondering why I no longer spooked. Spooks don't like to be ignored! It came over a ridge and I saw it in silhouette against the moonlight--and it was a night mare. No, not a mare, I realized after a moment, for several reasons. The mares did not tease sleepers with distant sounds; they came right in to deliver their bad dreams, then trotted on to the next. They did not have time to fool around, for there were many dreams to deliver. Besides which, I wasn't asleep. And this was no mare; it was a colt. Maybe a stallion. A shaggy, wild thing hung with chains; that was how it rattled. It was, in fact, a pooka--a ghost horse.

Jordan decides he will catch and use the pooka. It has to be at least half solid, but it could outrun him if it tried.

quote:

But I was very tired now; contrary to carefully fostered myth, barbarians do get tired on occasion. It would be better to get a night's rest and commence the pursuit in the morning. On the other hand, the creature could be long gone by then, so I didn't dare wait.

I sighed. It would have to be now. Fortunately, I was a robust young man, so my fatigue was an inconvenience, not a crippling thing. I organized for the chase.

Jordan makes a vine lariat, heading after the pooka. It flees, but the chains and hoofprints let him track the thing. Jordan decides the creature must be male, for no real reason other than he feels like it. The pooka fears him, and keeps fleeing until morning. The pooka hides by day in a thicket, and Jordan sets up camp outside it. He can't see the pooka, but if the pooka moves, he'll be able to catch it. The pooka sneaks, awakening Jordan instantly with the sound of chains, and bolts. Jordan keeps chasing, and he hopes the pooka is getting hungry.

quote:

I passed a region where the bushes had twice as many berries, for each was double. I was about to pop the first twin-berries into my mouth when I hesitated. I had, of course, familiarized myself with many natural things, so that I could safely forage in the wilderness, but these were strange. Something nagged; Something about twin-berries, paired berries, double-berries--

I froze. Berry-berries! They were poisonous, causing weakness, paralysis, and wasting away. But the effects were slow, so that a person could eat a lot of them before being affected--and that would be too late. Of course my magic talent would protect me from serious damage, but while it was acting, the pooka could have gotten away. Better not to get into trouble to begin with!

(Pun Count: 28)

quote:

However, I had a cunning primitive thought. I might be able to use those berry-berries for my own advantage sometime. So I harvested a number and put them in my bag. I noticed there were no B's buzzing around the plants that still had flowers; perhaps that had helped alert me. B's stayed strictly away from berry-berries, so that the berries could even be used as a B repellent.

(Pun Count: 29) Jordan then continues after the pooka. He finds the trail just ends abruptly, however.

quote:

I decided to double-check. A little caution seldom hurts anyone. Another myth about barbarians is that they charge straight ahead heedlessly into danger; in truth it is the ignorant civilized man, blundering in the jungle, who does that. No barbarian ever walked blithely into a tangle tree! Well, yes, I did do that at night, but that was a special situation, and I had my sword ready.

He finds the horse carefully walked backwards in its own hoofprints, then broke off in another direction. It had tried to trap Jordan in the Void. Now Jordan wants it even more. He heads after the creature, always tailing it. They head through the region of birds, and a roc grabs the pooka. Jordan shoots it with his bow, forcing it to drop the pooka, which hides as the roc turns on Jordan. However, it is too big to grab him, so it goes to grab him and the ground under him. He cuts at the bird's talons with his sword, digging a hole in the dirt and falling. He heals an hour later, for his talent is regeneration, and he can heal from practically any wound - even death. He spots the pooka grazing, and it flees in terror as he rises from the dead.

quote:

I yelled and bore down on him. He looked up, startled--and reacted as if he'd seen someone risen from the dead. Terrified, he took off, leaving half a munch of grass to drop to the ground behind. One might think a ghost horse would not be afraid of other ghosts, but that's not so; even ghosts fear what they don't understand, and the average ghost is a pretty timid creature. I ought to know! And, of course, a pooka isn't a complete ghost, because of that solidity; it's sort of in a halfway state, much the way a zombie is halfway between life and death. If the pooka ever slipped his chains, he'd fade into full spirit status. But the chains hold him to life, so he must graze and do most of the other things living creatures do, however inconvenient some of them may be. There are a number of things like that in Xanth, neither this nor that, but partaking of some of this and other of that.

The pooka flees into griffin country, and ends up trapping itself in a griffin's lair.

quote:

The pooka, hungry and tired, was less careful. He charged right through a griffin-retreat, where there was a big nest in a low-branching tree. A griffiness was on the nest, incubating an egg or something--I'm not quite clear on that aspect, as griffins are fussy creatures with royal lineages and don't tolerate much snooping--and she let out an awful squawk at this intrusion. The male griffin had been snoozing on a branch up higher in the tree, his wings folded while his claws gripped the bark. Startled, he jumped right off the branch and plunged like a rock, or maybe I mean a roc, before he spread his wings and pulled out of the dive. He wasn't one bit pleased. I suspect I wouldn't be, either, waking up like that, with a woman screaming at me about some creature violating her privacy. Maybe that's another reason I was wary of marriage; like the boundary to the Void, it's apt to be a one-way trip into who-knows-what.

Jordan chases after the pooka, who now fllees the griffin. The griffin catches the pooka, and Jordan chases after them, too far away to do anything. He has no desire to kill the griffin, so he doesn't use his bow. The griffin comes down on the pooka, but pecks one of the chains, then catches his claw in it by accident as he tries to flee. The pooka tries to thrhow the stuck griffin off, then smashes him off with a low tree branch. The griffin heads home, deciding he wants no more of this, and Jordan keeps after the pooka. They head into a marsh, which neither of them enjoys, and Jordan is approached by a strange fish, which he stabs.

quote:

"Ooo, ouch!" the fish cried, plopping back into the muck. "You didn't have to do that! All I wanted was to loan you something."

I didn't trust talking fish. "What did you expect in return?"

"Only an arm and a leg," it replied.

"Well, I'm not interested, leave me alone, or--"

"That's what I'm trying to do! Leave you a loan. I'm a loan shark."

(Pun Count: 31)

quote:

"I don't care if you're a lone shark or a hundred sharks, I don't want to see your green back near me! Take off, or I'll lop off your fin."

(Pun Count: 32) The pooka has more trouble as he heads for the firewall. Jordan scares the fish off.

quote:

I forged toward him, waving my sword to scare away the fish. "Move off," I cried at them, "Or I'll saw your bucks in half." The fish hesitated, not wanting to experience this sawbuck. But the pooka saw my waving weapon and was scared away himself. He plunged for the firewall. "No, wait!" I cried. "I'm trying to help you!"

(Pun Count: 33) The pooka heads for the firewall, but becomes trapped by loan sharks. His chains keep him safe, but it can't last. Jordan gets to him, and tells him that all he wants is a mount - it's better than drowning or being eaten.

quote:

The red fin launched itself at me. I chopped at it with my blade, severing the fin from the body exactly as I had warned the greenback I would, and this redneck swam raggedly away. Now the water was red, too!

(Pun Count: 35) More sharks converge, and Jordan climbs up on the pooka, which he has named Pook. He keeps chopping at the sharks, and eventually they leave, having eaten their own kind enough to be full. However, the pooka will soon drown. Jordan says that he'll find a way to save the creature. He pushes under the firewall via the marsh, and Jordan realizes he can save the pooka if he can haul him under the firewall. He needs a chain, but those of the pooka are not loose. He stretches out a loop of it, chopping off part of the chain. He takes the chain, unraveling enough to anchor the pooka and haul him under the firewall. He explains his plan, and he hopes the pooka understands. He hauls the pooks under, however, and the pooka follows the plan. They come up on the other side of the firewall, wrapping the chain back around the pooka but not releasing it. Then he mounts the creature.

quote:

The poor thing was so bedraggled and tired he didn't say neigh. I had my steed at last--or so I thought.

(Pun Count: 36)

Pun Count: 36 38 by the end of Chapter 2. I forgot to count the stork and cabbage poo poo.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 23:41

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

All I remember about this one is the big plot twist and also some uncomfortable sexual threats.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 00:45

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 3. Jordan rides Pook back to a region where the burning trees havem ostly grown back. He sets up camp, and the horse just runs off.

quote:

I sighed. I had hoped--but of course I was just a backwoods lunk, not understanding the true motives of people or creatures, however much I tried. I foraged for some fruit for my meal--it was amazing how fast these trees progressed after being burned!--then settled down to sleep. I didn't worry about predators here; they wouldn't pass through the firewall.

Jordan awakens to find fire sweeping towards him. He spots Pook running, and leaps onto his back. It's not comfortable, but it'll do. They find that the fire has trapped them, but they can reach the firewall. They have to jump through, but they make it, barely. They end up before a mountain, which they decide to climb.

quote:

We moved on toward the mountains as the sun came up, then paused for breakfast. I let Pook graze, but this time I did not dismount, knowing he would bolt. I simply pulled down a dainty feminine fruit from an overhanging branch and bit into it. I was surprised; it was not fruit but meat--evidently a miss-steak, grown there by error. Sometimes spells got befuddled. It made a good, solid meal, however, though I would have preferred to cook it.

(Pun Count: 39) They find traces of goblins in the mountains, and while they are wary, the goblins spot them. They flee, since you can't negotiate with goblins.

quote:

The goblins gave chase. They were afoot and they had stubbly little legs, big feet, and gross, ugly heads, but they moved along pretty well. Also, one of them sounded a blast on a horn, summoning the other goblins. It was a stink horn, and it made a foul-smelling noise, the kind that instantly attracted that kind of creature. So, though we handily outran that bunch, we did not get free of goblins.

(Pun Count: 40) The goblins pour out from the caves, and Jordan lays about with his sword, trying to get away. The firewall hems them in, however. They charge on towards the mountain.

quote:

I nudged Pook to the side, where a lance-tree grew. I severed a lance with a passing sweep of my sword. Then we looped back and slowed momentarily--the ghost horse, afraid of the massed goblins, was now obeying my every hint with marvelous alacrity, since I seemed to know what I was doing--so I could flip up the lance with the point of my sword and catch it with my free hand. I have pretty good coordination with weapons; it's another barbarian specialty. Then we resumed speed, and I sheathed my sword and used both hands to hold the lance firm. It was a good long one, with the point extending well ahead of Pook's head.

(Pun Count: 41)

They make it to the mountain base, heading up it, while the goblins try to crowd them. The lance keeps them away. However, the path curves messily, and the goblins throw things and roll rocks down at them.

quote:

More enterprising goblins rolled rocks down the intersecting paths; most of these were small enough to be mere nuisances, so that Pook could hurdle them, but some were large enough to be threats. We were also conscious of the sheer malignance of the massed goblins; there was not one of them who wouldn't rejoice at our misfortune, simply because we were strangers. The goblins were the ultimate bigots of Xanth, hating all creatures who were not like themselves and not feeling too positive about themselves, either. I had heard that goblin females were different, but all I saw here were males. No doubt the females were smart enough not to indulge in this sort of quarrel.

They head into a crevice, but find it a dead end. The goblins trap them, and there's no way to go back. They have to head down a tunnel. A boulder crashes into the tunnel mouth, trapping them inside.

quote:

We halted, but knew before we checked that we were trapped. Even if we managed to push or pry out the boulder, we would encounter an army of vicious goblins beyond it, eager to hurt us with sticks, stones, and names. Once again we had no choice but to go forward. I have always had a distinct dislike of such unchoices; they generally led to mischief; and even if they didn't, I still preferred to get into trouble in my own fashion rather than the forced-path way.

(Pun Count: 42) They head deepr in, and Jordan tells Pook that he has to trust him. Pook doesn't respond. The tunnels are lit by glowing, rainbow fungi, and Pook and Jordan smell some unpleasant creature. They can smell it coming for them and flee, but they are soon caught.

quote:

Suddenly the monster loomed before us. It was a gross manlike thing, with horrible distorted features. The worst monsters are always manlike; I've never been quite clear why this is so, but it definitely is so. Fur covered this thing's face; from the fur, a grotesque and bulbous nose poked out, and under the fur, two great, ugly eye-slits peered, as from behind a dirty veil; at the bottom of the face, several twisted tusks projected. There must have been a mouth somewhere. The creature seemed to be male--the worst specimens of anything are always male, except for harpies. His arms were hairy extremities on which the muscles seemed to be attached backward, and his torso had several bones in the wrong places. In some ways he was like an unusually large and grotesque goblin, but in other ways he was worse--his breath, for one thing; his exhalations surrounded him like a putrid cloud. Pook and I were gagging.

Later I learned that this was one of the Callicantzari, a race of monsters who lived mostly underground and undermined the roots of important trees, such as the Tree of Seeds on Mount Parnassus or the tree that supported the sky--the trees without which Xanth as we know it would cease to exist. Imagine a land without all the myriad and wonderful species of trees that stem from those magic seeds, or a land without any sky. How could we function without the sun and moon and stars and clouds safely out of the way? But it seemed that these monsters didn't worry about that; they just wanted to bring down the trees. Maybe that's one of the differences between monsters and human beings--the monsters don't care what happens next.

The Callicantzari have tunnels going to every significant mountain and labor diligently to bring down those trees, but when they get close to the surface and its unaccustomed freedom, they rush out and run around, terrorizing people and animals and dancing wildly, maddened by the sight of the stars until morning comes. Even the goblins can't stand them and will attack immediately if they show up in goblin territory. That explains why the Callicantzari hadn't used our tunnel to escape. When they get out elsewhere, and the sun rises, they flee its light in terror. The shock always takes them some time to recover from, and by the time they resume their normal equilibrium, such as it is, the trees have regrown their roots, and the job has to be started over. Thus the Callicantzari are never successful, which perhaps is just as well. Generally, because of their repeated failures, they are in a foul mood, and their breath suggests that mood. So they really have quite a history, and are not just ordinary monsters. But at the moment, all I knew was that Pook and I were in more trouble.

They try to charge through, smashing past one of the Callicantzari and attacking the next with Jordan's sword.

quote:

Still there were more! Two lumbered from side tunnels, reaching for me with their grotesque carrion-hooks. I cut the arms off the one on the right, but the one on the left got me in a gruesome hug and hauled me off my steed. Yes, I know that sort of mishap is not supposed to happen to heroes. The truth is, it happens, but the Barbarian Publicity Department censors it out.

Jordan tells Pook to flee, and he does.

quote:

Naturally I wasn't aware what happened next, but now I see it in the pictures of the tapestry, and my understanding of the situation helps fill it in. Satisfied that I was dead, the Callis hauled me down to their main depot, where their cows and cubs lurked. There they clumsily used my own fair sword to cut my body open so they could gut me with their dirty claws. They yanked out all my innards and gobbled them down as delicacies, quarreling over the scraps. Then they jammed me in a big pot of cold water, to cook the tougher parts, and set about fetching wood for a fire. This took some time, for they had not planned ahead, and there wasn't much wood to be found in the deep caves. But after some hours, they scraped up enough, garnered from the roots of the trees they had been trying to destroy. Now at last they were ready to cook.

Meanwhile, some of them checked through my tattered clothing to see if there was anything interesting there. They chomped on the buttons and laces and ripped the cloth, liking the ripping sound. They found the bag of berry-berries I had saved, then fought again among themselves to see who could gobble the greatest number down. Well, I daresay they felt the effect in due course; it was almost worth dying to think of the effect those debilitating berries would have on those monsters.

There was another problem: the Callicantzari were afraid of fire. It seemed its brightness, reminiscent of that of the sun, hurt their eyes. If you ask me what sense it makes to crave cooked food when you're afraid of fire, I can't answer; I suppose monsters wouldn't be monsters if they were sensible. If I had known about this before, I would have arranged to bring a torch with me into their caverns, so they would not have dared approach me. But barbarian heroes aren't necessarily all-knowing, either.

Not one of the monsters wanted to light and tend the fire. This problem hung them up another hour. At last they drew lots for the one who would do the deed--but then he had no spell to start the fire. They had to look for another hour to locate the spell--by which time it was their night, which happened to correspond with ours, though I don't know how they knew. Maybe the glowing fungi dimmed a little. So they left the feast until morning and snored. Their snores were absolutely awful sounds, like sawfish sawing down rock maple trees.

(Pun Count: 44) Pook, meanwhile, is hunting for a way out. He eventually finds one, then stops and turns back due to some odd smell. He comes back and finds Jordan, waking him, since Jordan has had time to heal. He's a bit weak, sure, but he'll do until he can eat. Pook helps Jordan escape and get back onto his back, then heads off for the exit.

Pun Count: 44 by the end of Chapter 3.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 17:16

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 4.

quote:

We found a fresh stream and a copse of pie trees, and I drank and ate and foraged for suitable replacement clothing from shoe-trees--my boots were sloshingly soaked, so I needed temporary footwear while they dried--trouser-trees, and shirt-trees, to replace what I had lost, while Pook grazed. I didn't try to hold or confine him; I lacked the strength, and anyway I didn't feel I had a right, since he had come back for me on his own. Maybe he wasn't tame, but he had chosen to be my companion for a while. I wondered why. I saw that he did not stray at all far from me, and I doubted this was from sudden affection. I hoped I wasn't being overly cynical--but then I knew I had brought him a lot of trouble, and barbarians aren't noted for comprehension of the nuances of interpersonal behavior.

(Pun Count: 45) Pook wants Jordan to ride him now, for some reason.

quote:

"You want me to ride you?" I asked, bemused. "You're not taking off alone into the wilds of the wilderness, knowing that I presently lack the strength or inclination to chase you down again?" Actually, I was stuffed with pies, which made me sluggish rather than weak, but this was also the first use of my new face and digestive tract. Startups are always awkward, and it takes a few hours to get the bugs out; there was a lot of gas, and I felt a little green. But every time I burped, another bug flew out, and I knew they would all be gone in a few more hours. There was no question that I was underweight, though; my thews were pitiful. In a few days I would be as good as new, more or less literally, but I needed lots of rest and food in the interim. I was no Magician; my magic talent had to be tempered with moderation.

(Pun Count: 46) Jordan gets on Pook, and they run into some elves. Now Jordan understands - if Pook was alone, they'd catch him and tame him with their magic, but if Jordan appears to own him, they'll leave him be. At least Jordan knows Pook's smart now. The elves ask Jordan why he's there. He says he's just passing through, having been driven under the mountain. He also says Pook as partway tame and he wants no fight. The elves offer him hospitality for the night.

quote:

"I am Oleander Elf, of the tribe of Flower Elves. These are--" He indicated his companions in turn. "--Cactus, Dogwood, Knotweed, Bloodroot, and Arrowhead." Indeed, I saw that they were armed in the manner of their names. Cactus had a dagger made of a large cactus thorn, Arrowhead had a little bow and quiver of arrows, Knotweed had knotted rope, Bloodroot had a red bag of fluid that might be blood-poison, and Dogwood had a wooden spear tipped with a large canine tooth. Only Oleander carried no visible weapon--but he was the leader, and I suspected he had something, perhaps a fighting spell. There were no goblins on this side of the mountain, and this was surely because of these elves. Elves did not seem as fierce and were certainly not as numerous as goblins, yet they kept the goblins clear. That spoke for itself. Like many people, I wondered what their secret was, since, as far as I knew, goblins respected nothing but brute force.

(Pun Count: 51) Oleander leads them to a hidden glen, and wonders why the elves are giving him this honor. The elves camp around their elf elm. Jordan is given a nice stew.

quote:

Then Oleander brought an elf maiden to meet me. "This is Bluebell, who wishes to ask a favor of you, Man," he said somewhat brusquely and departed. I wondered at that anew; had I given some sort of offense? I had certainly tried to be a good guest, but one never can be certain with nonhuman cultures, though the elves were about as human as such cultures got. If it were not for the distinction of size, I would hardly know the difference.

"A favor?" I asked. "I will be happy to help in any way I can, but I don't know much about elves--"

Bluebell smiled. She was a lovely little creature, perfectly proportioned, like a doll in her green dress; "I will tell you about elves, Jordan-Man," she said. "But first I must do you a favor, so it's even. What would you like?"

"I am quite satisfied to accept the elven hospitality," I replied cautiously. I glanced across to where Pook was grazing. Few animals got to touch grass as lush as that which the elves cultivated around their elms. "And so is my horse. That is favor enough."

"No, you will repay that by telling us your story tonight," she said. "I mean, a favor from me personally."

What was she getting at? "Your charming company is enough," I said. "Please tell me what you wish me to--"

"Not yet," she demurred. She jumped up to perch on my bent knee, dangling her pretty legs in the way girls had. "I must do you my favor first."

I shook my head. "As I said, I'm just a backwoods man, unfamiliar with elven ways. I don't want to give offense by making mistakes, and I have already antagonized Oleander in some way. So you will have to explain to me exactly what--"

She emulated my motion, but the effect differed: when she shook her head, her lovely elf-gray hair tumbled about fetchingly. "Don't worry about him! He's just perturbed because he wanted Cowslip to get your favor, but I won the toss. Cowslip's his cousin, and she's all right if you like that type." Bluebell indicated an elf maid nearby. I looked and saw a stunning example of the type; I did indeed like it.

"I will do a favor for each of you, to keep the peace," I said magnanimously. "But I need to know what--"

She laughed merrily. "Only for me, Man; that's the rule. I've got the spell. I won it and I won't share it."

I was more perplexed than ever. "What spell?"

She glanced at me sidelong. "You are delightful! I will show you in due course. Now--name your favor."

I sighed silently. Evidently she preferred to play her game with me, in the fashion of maidens everywhere, and I felt every bit as ignorant as I was supposed to be. "Well, I'm an adventurer, but I don't quite know where I'm going. That is, I'm headed for Castle Roogna, the Man capital, but there are a lot of barriers along the way, like the goblin mountain, that I would have avoided if I'd known. If I had a good map--"

"A map!" she exclaimed. "Of course! You shall have it!" She bounced off my knee and ran to the tree, her hair flinging out behind her. Doll she might be, but she was a woman-doll!

Soon she was back, hauling a scroll about as big as herself. Breathlessly she unrolled it for me on the greensward, pertly sitting on the top end while I spread my fingers to hold down the bottom end. "This is Xanth," she panted prettily. "Here we are, in the center, with the goblins, griffins, and birds to the north and the dragons to the south. To the east, beyond the river, is the big ocean, and to the west are the five terrible Elements--Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void. They aren't nice places; you don't want to go there. In fact, nowhere is as nice as right here."

I perused the map with interest. "I came from up here, in the fen. I ran into the--"

"Oh, no, don't tell your story yet," she protested. "Save it for the whole tribe. Where are you going from here, specifically?"

"Well, I thought south. I don't want to pass through the Elements I see here, and I doubt I'd care for the Region of the Flies below it, so if I go south and then loop around to the west below--um, I don't see Castle Roogna on this map."

She cocked her head and wiggled her toes, considering. "I have heard the name, faintly. We elves don't concern ourselves overmuch with human business. But all the other details should be right. I think your castle is south of the--the--I don't quite remember what, but south of it. Maybe here." She pointed to the bottom section of the map, marked HERE THERE BE OGRES, and shuddered.

That's exactly what Jordan was looking for. She still won't tell him what she wants from him, though.

quote:

"It will be, Jordan-Man," she assured me. Then the elves cleared away the remnants of the meal and faced the tree in a great circle. The King elf stood beside the trunk, clapping his hands for silence. "That's Crown-of-Thorns," Bluebell whispered to me. She was now perched on my shoulder, dangling her legs down into my right shirt pocket. She was so light I hardly felt her, and her grasp on my right ear, to steady herself, was like a caress.

King Crown-of-Thorns spoke, and a well-spoken King was he. "I welcome the traveling Barbarian Man who visits us this day," he said formally. "I invite him to exchange entertainments with us. First we shall show him ours.

And from the towering foliage of the elf elm descended ten elven damsels, suspended by threads, pirouetting in the air. They came to rest just above the ground, then began to swing like pendulum bobs, their motions slow because of the length of their threads. They bounced in unison, spreading arms and legs as they swung around the tree. Then they swung in differing directions, forming patterns that changed before my eyes could quite grasp them, generating fleeting impressions of stunning beauty. In and out they wove, now together, now apart, now linking hands, now spinning separately. It was a unified dance, lovely in its parts and in its whole, and I was duly enchanted.

Then the damsels dropped to the ground, and a dozen male elves approached the tree. These were young, healthy specimens, muscular and coordinated--the equivalent of barbarians. Their dance was on the ground, and it incorporated feats of strength. They spread out in a wide circle about the elm. Each lifted a sizable stone, held it a moment, then dropped it.

Then they moved into a tighter circle, where larger stones had been set. Each lifted one of these with no more apparent difficulty than he had lifted the smaller one, to my surprise. Once again they contracted the circle, where lay yet larger stones, and each picked up one of these. I wondered whether the larger stones were of lighter substance, to make this possible. Pumice, for example--magic stone spewn up from the depths, some of it so light it would float on water. That would explain what I observed here.

King Crown-of-Thorns spied my perplexity. "You doubt, honored Man?" he declaimed. "We will show you the magic of our tree! Fetch us the largest log you can carry!"

Jordan goes and gets a log, bringing it over. He's sure that the elves can't lift it.

quote:

But the elves intended to try! As I backed off, the twelve approached the log. They set themselves about it and got their little hands under it and heaved together. It wobbled but didn't lift. I was not surprised; since each elf was a quarter of my height, depth, and breadth, that meant each was about one-sixty-fourth my mass; that was why Bluebell was so slight on my shoulder. I could have supported her whole weight readily with my littlest finger. So each elf might be able to heft one-sixty-fourth what I could, and all twelve together--well, I'm not that apt at math in my head, but it seemed reasonable that all twelve elves acting in concert could lift only a fifth as much as I could, maybe less. Of course, I did not have my full strength back, and they had many little hands and had to lift the log only marginally off the ground. Still, chances were it was three times as heavy as they could manage.

The elves gathered at one end and lifted and shoved. The ground was uneven, and this end was slightly raised, so they were able to pivot the log about its center support without lifting it. They got it parallel to the elm. Then they all pushed, and slowly it rolled toward the tree. Well, they were using their minds now, and leverage helped.

They manage to lift it next time, bringing it over to the area with the small rocks. Then half of the elves leave...and the other half lift the log. Then they bring it to the large rocks...and half of them leave again, with the other three lifting the log.

quote:

Bluebell tweaked my ear. "We Elves have magic you Men wot not," she whispered. Then, I swear, she kissed the rim of my ear. I'm not sure which startled me more--the log-lifting or the miniature kiss. What was going on here?

Then they carry it closer to the tree, and two more leave, with only one elf carrying it the rest of the way. Jordan checks the log, and it isn't any lighter. Elves grow stronger near elf elms, you see.

quote:

"You mean--?" But already I saw that it was true. The stones--as the elves' strength increased, they had lifted larger stones. It had been no trick, just a demonstration. At the base of the tree, the strength of an elf became practically infinite. "Females too?"

"Want me to pick you up?" she asked. "I can do it--here beside the elm."

"You--do elves keep getting weaker, away from the tree?"

"Yes, but it's on a declining curve. We change rapidly near the tree, slowly away from it. As long as we don't range out too far, we're all right."

And that's why elves always retreat to the tree if attacked. Now Jordan tells them his story so far, and they're quite interested. He also demonstrates his healing talent by cutting his arm. They also give him some grog and Bluebell says it's time for her favor.

quote:

"This way," she said, leading me back to the tree. I walked somewhat unsteadily, feeling the grog. That is to say, groggy.

(Pun Count: 52)

quote:

I stopped at the base of the trunk, but she proceeded to climb the elm. "I can't go up there!" I protested, eyeing the virtually vertical ascent. The tree was large, having had time to grow during the centuries the elves had protected it; two human men would barely be able to reach around it. There were no low branches; it was a great column rising to the mass of foliage far above.

"Yes, you can, Jordan," she told me. "The grog gives you the power."

Dubiously, I tried it. I put my hands to the bark--and they clung as if cemented. I brought up a foot, and it adhered similarly. When I lifted one hand, it came free, so I could take hold higher. Like a fly, I could walk the wall! This, of course explained how flies did it; they sneaked sips of elven grog.

So I followed her up, though the height was dizzying. If the magic failed, I knew I would fall and be killed--but I wasn't worried for three reasons. First, I did not believe the elves meant me any harm, so the grog-spell should hold. Second, if I did fall, my body would heal the breaks within a day, so death would be only temporary. Third, the pleasant stupor the grog has put me in made all this--a matter of indifference; I simply didn't care. It seemed almost natural to be following a doll-sized elf lass up a huge tree.

At last we reached the first bifurcation of branches and entered the foliage. Bluebell led me up through it until we came to a great tangle of mistletoe in the highest reach. The points of the missiles and toes scratched me, but I healed in seconds. Bluebell entered this mass, and I followed, discovering a way through; and lo! inside it was a great globed nest, with pillows and a comfortable floor. The fading light of day filtered in through the levels in diffused fashion, pleasantly illuminating leaves and vines of many colors.

I lay against the resilient and fragrant leaf wall. "This is lovely," I said. "Now what is the favor I owe you? Do you need some heavy object carried down to the ground, or lifted up from the ground?" Though, with their super-strength, it hardly seemed the elves would need my help there.

She smiled as if finding something funny. Girls of any species can be like that. "You need lift no object too heavy to manage, Jordan," she said.

"Well, I'm ready to serve. Name it."

"It is the service that only you can give," she said. "Your most precious possession."

Dismay sliced through my daze, abolishing it. "You want my sword?"

She looked at me, astonished, then tumbled over in laughter. I had to laugh too, for it seemed it was not my weapon she was after; and indeed, I realized that a creature her size and sex would have no way to handle it.

I pondered, and sobered again, realizing what an elf would want of a man like me. "My horse!"

Bluebell managed not to laugh this time, but obviously she was feeling merry. She came to sit on my knee, as she had done below. "Now how could I get a ghost horse up here?" she asked, and then the laughter bubbled up and overflowed again. Elves certainly are merry folk!

"Well, I know elves need transportation and hauling, away from the tree," I said. "A creature like Pook doesn't lose strength--" But I saw she was just about to fall off my knee with mirth, and of course I was relieved to know that this had not been a ploy to demand Pook. He really would have felt I had betrayed him, and certainly I had not intended to do that. "But--what do you want, elven maid? I'm out of precious possessions."

I don't know why she was so over-bubbling with laughter. "You can not guess, Jordan-Man?"

"I'm only a barbarian warrior, not too smart," I reminded her somewhat tersely.

"But honest and strong and nice," she said.

"And not good at riddles," I added, annoyed.

She unbuttoned her green tunic, slipped out of it, and sat again on my elevated knee. She was a lovely miniature woman in every respect. "Now can you guess, Jordan-Man?"

"You want me to fetch new clothing for you?"

This time she doubled up and rolled about with the force of her laughter, in the process showing a good deal more than she ought and landing in a pretty heap in my lap. "Oh, barbarian, you still have something to learn about elves--or about women," she said when she had recovered some of her breath.

"I know about women," I replied somewhat stiffly, remembering Elsie. "I never claimed to be expert on elves. I knew of you Little Folk mainly by hearsay, until I met you today. You seem very like human beings, except for your size and your magic."

"There you utter truth indeed!" But still she seemed to be bursting with some horrendously humorous secret. "You don't know the nature of an Accommodation-Spell?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Oh, this is fun!" she exclaimed, peering up at me and kicking her legs about. "I knew barbarians only by hear-say, too. You're much more fun than I expected."

"Thank you," I said awkwardly.

"For your information, Man, the Accommodation-Spell was fashioned by one of the Magicians of your kind. I think his name is Yin-Yang. He packages spells of all types and peddles them to anyone who is interested."

Yin-Yang, it seems, is near Castle Roogna.

quote:

She tired of teasing me. "Jordan, you force me to be direct, I want your help to summon the stork," she said, or words to that effect. "I want a baby--a halfling, able to be among men and elves."

I gaped at her. "That's impossible!" I protested. "The size--it--I--I've got to get out of here!"

"The favor!" she cried. "You promised!"

"But--"

"Here, I'll invoke the spell," she said. She made a gesture with her hands. There was a flash, and then a funny wrenching sensation.

When my equilibrium re-established itself, I discovered that the bower had expanded enormously. It was now twice as big in diameter as it had been and eight times the volume. Length-volume judgments come readily to a person who may have to carry home the mass of the animal he puts an arrow through; he quickly learns that twice the height means a good deal more than twice the weight. The cushion I sat on was now more like a small bed.

"How do you like me now, Jordan?" Bluebell asked.

I turned my head to look at her--and gaped again. She was my size--or as close as a woman need be. She was phenomenal; the attributes that had been cute when she was small were now voluptuous. "I--what happened?"

She laughed yet again. "It's the spell," she explained. "It accommodated us. You are now an eighth your former mass, and I am eight times mine, so we're the same."

I looked at the bower again and the cushion. Yes; every dimension had doubled, which meant that my own dimensions had halved. I was half as tall, half as wide, and half as deep, while she had doubled every dimension. It certainly made a difference!

"But the baby," I protested. "If--"

"When," she corrected me.

"When the, uh, the stork brings--what size will it be?"

"My size, of course, so I can take proper care of him," she said. "Until he leaves the tree. Then--who knows? Some halflings can change size."

"I certainly never expected this!" I said.

"So I gathered," she said. "Well, let's not waste time. I know you want to get on with your more interesting adventures, where there be ogres and such."

There is no point in describing in tedious detail what followed. I'll just say that elven maidens are fully as adept in summoning storks as are human maidens, and I was glad to do my part. When I had done it, I got ready to leave the bower, but Bluebell held me back. "Not yet," she said.

Oh? Well, the Accommodation-Spell hadn't dissipated yet, so there was no point in my leaving the bower then;

I would be too small to do much adventuring.

We ate, for the bower was stocked with giant fruits and nuts and bags of beverage. I suppose they were normal size; I was the one who had changed. Anyway, we feasted. There was a privy region for other natural functions. Then I napped for perhaps an hour and felt much improved when I woke.

It seemed she wanted to signal the stork again, so we did that. When that was done, again I thought it was time to depart, but again she restrained me. So we had another meal, and another sleep, all very nice, and I woke yet further restored. It turned out that she wished to generate a third message to the stork--or maybe she figured that three storks were better than one--and she was so lovely and persistent that I could do no less than cooperate.

"Now it is complete," she said. "The stork will come."

"You're sure?" I asked. "Maybe it would be better to send a few more messages."

She laughed, as she did so readily. "You are truly delightful, Jordan-Man, but I have held you too long already. I have felt the stork's acknowledgment; the baby will be delivered in due course."

That was the funny thing about the stork: it insisted on a delay before delivery. Maybe this was to give the prospective mother time to change her mind, or learn how to pin diapers. But I knew Bluebell's mind was set; she wanted that halfling.

So she dismissed me, and I had to depart. Such is the life of an adventurer. "It's certainly been fun," I told her, "and I'll remember it always."

She kissed me, one last time. "You're sweet." Then she waved her arms, reversing the spell, and in a moment we were back to our original sizes.

Back down the tree. Jordan finds he has been there three days, not three hours. They go to see the augur to foretell the fate of Bluebell's child.

quote:

The woman peered into its sparkles, which now seemed to have a different pattern. "A son," she said. "He will leave you when he matures and go seek a wife among the human kind. He will never achieve notoriety, but his descendants may."

"Thank you," Bluebell said, sounding disappointed. Evidently she had hoped for more.

Aware of this, the woman peered more closely, tracing down a particular sparkle. "Let me see--there is one, far down the line, centuries hence--yes, she will consort with human Kings of Xanth."

"Oh!" Bluebell exclaimed, brightening.

Jordan asks his own future, but the augur is not happy to tell it.

quote:

The elfess grimaced. "You will be doomed by a cruel lie," she told me. "Yet it is not the end. After your flesh has rotted, you will find true love."

"Uh, thank you," I said, no more thrilled than Bluebell had been at first. I didn't really believe in fortune-telling, but I didn't really disbelieve, either.

Then the gathering dissipated. The King bade me farewell, ironic as that might seem after the prophecy, and Bluebell climbed up to give me a parting kiss.

Pook is fed and watered, and Jordan is able to mount him up again, though he knows Pook's only been playing along for his own safety.

Pun Count: 52 by the end of Chapter 4.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 20:00

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 5. Jordan has returned to his full strength. He heads south, heading through dragon country. It's fairly quiet at first, but Pook smells something. Jordan thinks a bird must have gotten away from a predator, leaving some blood anf feathers. Pook seems confused, though, and follows the trail. The bird turns out to be a stork with a broken wing and a bundle in its beak - a baby.

quote:

Could Bluebell--? No. As I said, there was always a delay of several months before the baby was delivered. The bureaucratic lapse differed, and tended to be longest for human beings; evidently storks didn't like human people as well as they liked mouse people or gremlin folk or whatever. Certainly the wait was more than a day for elves. Besides, the bundle was way too big to hold an elfling.

The stork asks if Jordan is friend or foe, and Jordan is surprised it can talk. He says he'll help.

quote:

"Uh, to help, I guess," I said awkwardly. I hadn't known that storks conversed with people like this. If they spoke our language, why did we have to make such intricate signals when ordering babies? It should be easier just to send a letter. No--immediately I realized that illiterates like me would never be able to order offspring, then; so there had to be a nonverbal or nonwritten signal. Anyway, I had never met a stork before; evidently their line of business required human communication at times, so they were trained for it. "But I don't know exactly what I can do. I'm not apt at healing others."

The stork has to go to ogre country to deliver the baby, so Jordan offers a ride. It turns out to be a baby ogre, which has grabbed Jordan's wrist and has to be hit on the head until it lets go. It starts chewing on Pook's chains. They get moving, but a dragon is coming and the stork can't quite remember what the problem is to the south.

quote:

There was a sound. I felt a shiver; that was a dragon snort, off to the right. I was in no mood at the moment to take on a dragon! I urged Pook to faster speed, but he needed no urging; he fairly flew across the land. I looked back over my shoulder to check on stork and ogret; the stork had his feet hooked firmly into a chain, so was secure, but the ogret had chewed almost through the link he was working on. "Stop that!" I snapped at him, and he growled and continued chewing. The trouble with juveniles these days is that they have no discipline!

Pook flees the dragon. However, a river dragon shows up as they hit a river.

quote:

"Hang on--I've got to fight!" I warned. Supposedly, barbarians fight just for the fun of it; that's a half-truth.

We enjoy combat when we expect to win. With dragons, the odds are inclement.

I guided Pook with my legs. He was very responsive, knowing that once again his half-life was on the line as much as my whole life was. I anchored my left hand on a chain and lifted my good sword with my right. The dragon behind me was a fire-breather, so we stayed clear of it; the one in front was a smoker. That would be no fun, but was a better risk than fire. They say that where there's smoke there's fire, but that's not generally true among dragons. They also say that more people die from smoke inhalation than from direct burns, but--I didn't trust that. So we charged the smoker snout-on.

They slam into the dragon sword-first, shoving the weapon right into the creature's brain. It isn't a mortal blow, but it is a painful one. Enough to distract the thing while they get away, but now the fire-breather catches up. Pook runs around it, getting it to flame its own tail painfully. They head south as the two dragons get entangled, escaping. A flying dragon goes after them, but they get it into a fight with a river dragon and escape it, too. Another flyer comes after them, but they head in a thicket...and find the Gap, which is what the stork forgot. It wasn't on the elf map. The flyer comes after them, blasting Jordan's right arm. He falls unconscious as his sword is hurled into the Gap. When he comes to, Pook is gone, the ogre baby is lying nearby, unhurt, and the stork is dead. Jordan is paralyzed. The dragon is coming around to eat. It devours the stork, then goes for the ogre. The ogre smacks it across the nose, and the dragon prepares to blast it with fire.

quote:

Just as the flame was ready, the ogret's ugly head popped out of the bag. Few things in Xanth are as ugly as an ogre's puss, and the sudden appearance of such a grotesquerie can be a shock. "Growr!" he growled in the dragon's face. If there is one thing worse than an ogre's puss, it's his growl.

The dragon was so startled he swallowed his fire. In fact, it backfired. There was a sort of internal rushing sound, and flame shot out of the dragon's tail. The monster straightened, its system reamed out, then curled and thrashed about as the heat of the fire cooked its own flesh. It rolled across the ground--and tumbled over the cliff.

Jordan heals enough to move, though his arm is still baked. Pook returns, as more dragons are coming and he feels Jordan has the best chance of getting him out alive. They still have to deliver the ogre, too, since they owe it for saving Jordan.

quote:

I peered down the cliff. It was impassable. I looked east, along it--and saw the river. It flowed up the cliff face, over the lip, and on to the north, where I knew it broadened out into a refuge for water dragons. It hadn't occurred to me that a river could flow up a wall, but, of course, there was a lot of Xanth I hadn't seen before. I have heard it said that travel broadens the mind; it certainly was doing so for me! "Maybe there," I murmured.

They head over to the river as Jordan's arm heals. The water is too shallow for the water dragons, but that means the land dragons can cross it. They decide to wade upstream, and find that doing so lets them walk down the wall of the Gap. The dragons lack the courage to follow them. Jordan tests whether they can leave the channel by throwing some water out - but no, it immediately falls down. Still, they're getting numb in the cold river.

quote:

I bent to peer into the water. Now I saw small fish swimming in it. I scooped one up--and cold stabbed through my hand. That was one cold fish!

(Pun Count: 53)

quote:

"I wish I had a hotfoot," I said. "Or a hot dog. That would drive away the cold fish." But wishes wouldn't do me much good. I needed something more tangible and immediate. My feet were freezing!

(Pun Count: 55) Jordan gets one of Pook's chains, using it to hang the ogre into the river. The ogre gets mad and roars, scattering the fish. This warms up the water. They repeat this three times as needed, until they reach the base of the Gap. Jordan decides against heading up the other side the same way, though. He gets his sword back and spots dragon tracks. They can hear the Gap Dragon coming, so they head the other way. Fortunately, Pook is faster. However, they're still stuck in the Gap, and the floor becomes ridges, forcing them to slow while the dragon can just whomp over them. Pook smells something that may help. They find a tunnel, ducking into it. The tunnel is long unused, but it goes out of the Gap, into ogre territory. Now all they have to do is deliver the baby. Still, they don't know where that should be. They stop to eat.

quote:

My assumption seemed to be correct. I offered him a banana, and he grabbed it in one hairy mitt, squished it in the center so that the pulp shot out at either end, and jammed the remaining skin into his maw. He took an apple, squeezed it so hard juice spurted, and gulped down the skin and seeds with evident gusto. This sort of eating was messy, but, of course, babies are messy eaters. I gave him a milkweed pod, afraid that he would just squish the milk all over himself, but this one he chose to swallow whole. Finally I gave him a pomegranate, and he really liked that; he knocked the granate on his head, cracking the stone open, then picked out the red, juicy seeds, threw them away, swallowed the stone, and burped up a seed he had overlooked. He was really sort of cute in his horrendous fashion.

(Pun Count: 57)

quote:

I leaned back against an acorn tree. "What am I going to do with you, ogre baby?" I asked rhetorically as I held out a fruit-punch. Naturally the ogret punched it. Juice exploded, and the baby crammed the husk into his big mouth. He spat a seed at me that just missed my head and embedded itself in the tree trunk behind me and growled contentedly. The shudder of the seed-shock traveled up the trunk and caused the branches of the tree to shake, dislodging a corn, which thunked into the ground before the ogret. He picked it up and chewed on it.

(Pun Count: 59) Jordan finds a tag on the baby, which he assumes has the address.

quote:

It was blank. Of course, I couldn't read, anyway, and wouldn't if I could--barbarians take justified pride in being illiterate--but that was a separate problem. How was I to get an address from this?

I turned it over--and it flashed. One side was bright, the other dull. When I turned it again, the brightside dulled and the dullside brightened. When I held it flat, both sides dulled. It was as if the thing were a mirror that reflected light only when properly oriented--except there was no source of light that accounted for the flash, just jungle.

Jordan reasons that the flash points the way to the parents.

quote:

I cut off a length of vine and tied it to the ogret's bag in such a way as to keep the baby inside while allowing him to look and reach out. Then I passed the vine over a sturdy branch and hauled the bundle of joy up about halfway; that kept the baby off the ground, which was no safe place at night even for a tyke as horrendous as this, and prevented him from going anywhere while I slept. As an afterthought, I sliced off a section of ironwood and passed it up. The hairy hand snatched it from my grasp, and the teeth happily gnawed on its end. It was a decent pacifier that should keep the ogret halfway quiet.

(Pun Count: 60) They head to bed for the night. In the morning, they harvest rock candy and milkweed. (Pun Count: 61) Then it's off to the ogres. (Jordan wonders why the baby's diaper is still clean, and decides it must be self-cleaning.)

quote:

We headed in the direction indicated by the tag-flash, which was roughly southeast. We galloped through forest and plain, over hill and valley, past cliff and cave, monster and river. We passed curse-burrs, ant-lions, drifting magic-dust, a colony of fauns and nymphs, harpies, and a mouth-organ tree that tootled a low note of warning at us. It was a pretty dull trip.

(Pun Count: 63) They head onwards, and they seem to get close to the tag's destination. They find an ogress, and Jordan swings the baby at her as she eats a tangle tree, hurling it. The mother catches the baby, happy, and Jordan flees. However, the male ogre spots him and gives chase. He can't catch them, but does hurl a huge boulder, which they barely avoid.

quote:

We managed to lose ourselves in an intricate pattern of geometrees, and the ogre gave up the pursuit. He wasn't very smart, for ogres are as stupid as they are strong, and that is the standard against which all other strength and stupidity is measured. He gave up the chase and went back to glower at the bundle of joy.

(Pun Count: 64) They head on, now, northwest, towards Castle Roogna. Eventually, they arrive without any further difficulty.

Pun Count: 64 by the end of Chapter 5.

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Aug 25, 2013

# ? Aug 24, 2013 23:50

ibntumart: Mar 18, 2007; Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.; College Slice

Jordan the Barbarian posted:

I was no Magician; my magic talent had to be tempered with moderation.

This part never made sense to me. If he just healed quickly, but wasn't immortal, or he only healed after dying and being dead for a few days, then fine, not Magician caliber. But you can literally butcher Jordan, set aside the various bits, and he's pretty much fine a couple of hours later. You can even kill him, let his body rot to no more than bones, and put him back together centuries later. Speaking with inanimate objects somehow doesn't seem as impressive.

And now I'm angry at myself for analyzing the cut-off point of Magician caliber talents. :argh:

Anthony

# ? Aug 25, 2013 00:08

JackMann: Aug 11, 2010; Secure. Contain. Protect.; Fallen Rib

Alopex posted:

Chem was brunette/brown a couple books ago. It was mentioned like half a dozen times in the gourd sequence alone. And now she's inexplicably blonde. I know this guy can't even keep personalities straight, but you'd think with how much emphasis he puts on the appearance of every last female character he'd be able to track that much.

It's important that they look pretty. What they actually look like is entirely incidental, and only occasionally mentioned.

# ? Aug 25, 2013 02:40

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 6. Jordan finds it difficult to approach Castle Roogna, as the trees seem overgrown and blocking the path.

quote:

Now that I thought of it, I realized I had encountered no men on my long journey here. Goblins, elves, ogres, yes--but these were only distantly related to men. Well, perhaps not too distantly related, in the case of the elves; Bluebell had been most womanlike, divinely feminine, when the adaptation-spell was in force. But where were the regular men and women? I had understood there were human villages scattered all around Xanth. Where were they?

Jordan cuts at the trees with his sword, and Pook warns him just before a branch crushes him.

quote:

Pook neighed warning. I leaped back--and a solid branch crashed down where I had been standing, the kind they call a widowmaker. It was just as well I had avoided it, since I wasn't married so couldn't leave a widow. Apparently I had shaken the tree hard enough to dislodge some deadwood. Apt name for it! I kicked it out of the way and made ready to hack again.

(Pun Count: 66)

quote:

But now, oddly, the branch was lower. In fact, it touched the ground. It would be easy for Pook to step over it. I considered hacking the rest of the way through it, anyway, to clear the path, but dusk was drawing nigh in the creepy way it had, and I wasn't sure what I would find ahead. Best not to expend more time here now. So I remounted Pook, and we stepped across and proceeded onward.

As we passed under the looming height of another tree, a great rock maple like the one the ogre had shattered, Pook leaped ahead. Behind us, a rock crashed. No ogre was present; the tree itself had bombed us!

Jordan decides to threaten the trees.

quote:

I decided to use Standard Barbarian Approach Number One: the direct threat of mayhem. I drew my sword again.

"Listen, you trees!" I yelled. "Whichever one of you drops anything on me will get its branches lopped off or its trunk girdled!"

There was no response. Holding the sword ready and glaring about me like an ogre, I guided Pook forward. His ears were turning this way and that, alert for the sounds of treachery. But nothing happened, and soon we were clear of this region. It seemed that my warning had sufficed; I had cowed the trees. Don't tell me that violence is the refuge of incompetence! It's the only language some things understand. Of course, I am a barbarian warrior, so there may be a modicum of self-interest in that statement.

They reach Castle Roogna itself, which is run down and covered in mildew. The moat monster is asleep on the job and there are no guards.

quote:

A woman appeared at the interior gate. She was middle-aged and dumpy, and her apron was dirty. "Welcome, Hero!" she exclaimed. "Do come in!"

"How do you know I'm a hero?" I demanded, not completely flattered. Oh, I like flattery as well as the next barbarian, but this seemed gratuitous and possibly insincere. Also, flattery is much easier to accept from young, pretty women than from old, dumpy ones.

"The prophecy," she explained.

"What prophecy?" I asked, somewhat aggrieved because I remembered the one made by the old elfess that I was to be doomed by a cruel lie. I don't really like such prophecies, so this was one I preferred not to be reminded of.

"King Gromden will have to tell you that. Come on in; we have supper waiting."

I shrugged and dismounted. It was strange that the trees had tried to prevent my approach to the castle, while people welcomed it. I remained on guard. But the prospect of a good meal was tempting. "What about my horse?" I knew Pook would be interested in the same kind of protection he had had among the elves; he was helping me in the wilderness, and I was helping him in civilization.

They give Pook a nice stall and some grain. Jordan warns Pook to be on guard and not eat too much, but Pook ignores him.

quote:

"That's pretty concentrated stuff," I warned him. "If you eat too much, you could get sick--" He snorted, sending oats flying; he knew what he was doing and didn't appreciate my meddling. I suppose I wouldn't have appreciated his cautions on women, sword-fighting, and such, either. We human beings can be awfully arrogant in little unconscious ways.

Inside the castle, things look better repaired and cared for.

quote:

A man stood at the head of the table. He was old and bald and fat, with straggly white whiskers and sunken eyes. He wore a fancy robe and crown, so I realized he was the King of Xanth. Naturally I greeted him with the respect due his rank. "Hello, King," I said.

"Hello, Hero," he replied, batting an eye.

"Um, King, I don't know about this hero business."

"It is the prophecy," he explained. "In our time of need, a young, well-formed man of primitive lineage is to appear, riding a pooka he has tamed. You are evidently that man. Now sit down and eat, before it gets cold."

"Uh, sure," I agreed, disconcerted. That prophecy did seem to have me nailed down pretty well, except that Pook claimed he wasn't really tame. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. But if that prophecy was on target, what about the elven one? I didn't like that thought, so I flushed it from my mind.

I sat down, and the woman served us both. It seemed to be dragon steak and fruit salad, with foaming brew from a beer-barrel tree. Standard fare, except for the dragon meat; I wondered how they had come by that. But on occasion dragons suffered mishaps, and men were able to snatch the bodies before some other creature did. I was good and hungry, so I went to it.

"You're really supposed to wait till King Gromden starts," the woman murmured in my ear as she poured the beer.

I paused, mouth full. "Mf mmf?" I asked.

"Quite all right," the King said quickly, taking a mouthful himself.

So we ate, and it was an excellent meal. The King didn't eat much, so I polished off most of it, tucking a spare dragon steak in my pocket for future consumption. Then we settled back to talk. "You may not know it. King, but I'm just a barbarian warrior," I said, burping vigorously and wiping my mouth on the tablecloth.

"That is surprising," he remarked gravely.

"What's this hero business? I mean, so there's a prophecy, but what do you need a hero for?"

"It would seem that we have a problem," Gromden said. "We do need a hero, and evidently you are it."

"Well, it's true I'm looking for adventure. King. What can I do for you?"

"You can undertake the Hero's Challenge."

"Sure, King. Just tell me where to go and what to do." I yawned, as it had been a long day.

"Tomorrow," Gromden decided. "You are obviously tired from your journey."

"Suits me. King," I agreed politely.

And so the maid woman showed me to an upstairs room, complete with a fine big bed, mirror, and chamber pot. I'd never had a room with such modern sanitary facilities before! Soon I flopped on the bed and slept, snoring roundly. I know I snored, because I heard the echoes off the walls. I really preferred the forest, but I'm adaptable; I can make do with civilized fixings when I have to.

The next morning, Jordan is awakened by the serving woman, who tells him to find his own food in the orchard, and that the king is indisposed.

quote:

"Oh. You mean the old boy doesn't want to talk today? Well, I guess I can wait."

She didn't answer. She just turned quickly away. Women can be funny that way.

I used the chamber pot and dumped it out the window, then went down and out to the orchard. Pook was already there, grazing. He looked satisfied; that load of grain had done him good. "How come you haven't run away?" I asked him. "You've been sticking with me when you don't have to, and you even served as part of the prophecy. Are you sure you're not tame?"

He snorted derisively, as he always did, and continued to graze. It occurred to me that even ghost horses might get lonely, or maybe tired of rattling chains at night. While he was with me, he had company and was admitted to the territories of elves and men, where there was good eating. Maybe it made sense to be tame, or to seem to be.

I found plenty of ripe fruits on the trees and soon fashioned myself a sandwich from slices of breadfruit and cheesefruit. I saw snapdragon bushes, and so the mystery of the dragon steaks was abated; it wasn't real dragon meat. I didn't mind; it tasted the same, as far as I knew. I could see that this had once been a well-kept grove, but now it was clogged by weeds. There just didn't seem to be much doing here at Castle Roogna. I remained disappointed, though I hoped the King had a good adventure for me.

(Pun Count: 69)

quote:

When I went back inside, I decided to check on the old boy. I found King Gromden's door with a crown painted on it, so I pounded on that. There was no answer, so I pushed it open and went in. "You here, King?" I called politely. I didn't want anyone to think I was just barging in.

There was a muffled sound from the bed, so I went there. King Gromden was lying on his back and he didn't look well at all. "Hey!" I exclaimed. "You're really sick, King!"

His eyes ground open. "Astute observation," he whispered.

"Hey, look, Grom, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know. The wench just said you weren't talking. Is it something you ate? Can I help?"

"I am old," he confessed, as if that weren't obvious. "I won't live out the year. Perhaps not the month. My wife and child deserted me years ago. You can help by undertaking the challenge."

"Sure, King," I said. "I told you I would yesterday. What is it?"

"It is--" He paused for a labored breath. Last the year or the month? I wasn't sure he'd last the hour! He had seemed okay the night before, but I guess these things come and go when you're old. "It is the challenge for the succession."

"The what?"

"The succession. When I die, there must be a new King. The best Magician in the land. But there's a problem I lack the strength to resolve--"

He faded out. "Yes, King?" I prompted, prodding him with a thumb. "You say you have to do something before you croak?"

"So there must be a contest," he whispered. "A contest of magic, and--"

I waited, but he seemed to have lost consciousness. Too bad; I really wondered what he had been trying to tell me. A contest of magic sounded pretty interesting, but I didn't see how I fitted in. I was, after all, just a barbarian;

I didn't know much about strong magic.

I went back to my room. There was the maid, looking flushed. "Where have you been?" she asked severely. "I've been looking all over for you."

"I was talking to the old boy," I said.

"You bothered the King?" she demanded as if shocked. Women get shocked by the littlest things. "He's ill!"

The woman sends him to talk to Magician Yin. Tomorrow, he will talk to Magician Yang. They refuse to come together, due to their competitiveness.

quote:

I shrugged amiably. "Sure, I'll talk to anyone. I hope the old boy feels better soon. Maybe he's constipated; if you give him some prune juice--" But she was already bustling away. I suppose she was one of those people who didn't take kindly to good advice.

So I went downstairs and found Magician Yin. I remembered that the elves had said someone with a name like that made the canned spells that could be so handy. He turned out to be a medium-sized, medium-aged man in white who really didn't look like much. Naturally I told him so; barbarians believe in straight talk.

He smiled, for some reason reminding me of the way the King had reacted to some of my comments. I just don't understand the attitudes of civilized folk, I suppose; it's as if they are piped in to some other kind of awareness that passes me by. Women are like that, too.

"Let me show you what I do," Yin said. He reached into a bag he carried and brought out a small globe. He handed it to me. "Set it somewhere and invoke it," he said.

Yin makes spells, you see. Jordan invokes the spell, which starts glowing. It will last until countered. However, Yin can't make a darkness spell - those are negative, and he can't make them. His twin brother, Yang, makes those. They are equals and opposites. One of them will be the next king, but they don't know which.

quote:

"Obviously Yang and I can't just throw spells at each other; they'd simply nullify one another and it would be even. We need to discover whose magic is more effective in practice. So we need a third party to use the spells for some practical purpose. Then we can ascertain whose spells are best."

"A third party," I said. "That must be me!"

"Correct," Yin agreed. "You will go on a quest, using my magic to assist you and to facilitate your mission, while Yang's magic opposes you. If you succeed, I will win and be designated the next King of Xanth; if you fail--"

"Um, what happens to me if I fail?" I asked.

"Well, it is simply a matter of fetching an object. If you don't bring it back, then Yang wins and becomes the next King. But I'm sure my spells will enable you to succeed."

"I guess so," I agreed uncertainly. Equal and opposite--it seemed to me the spells would still cancel one another out, leaving no advantage for either side. But I was the first to concede that a barbarian is not the one to comprehend the nuances of magical interplay. "How do I get the spells?"

"This bag is for you," he said. "Our agreement is that I provide seven spells to assist you. Yang will set the opposite seven spells to oppose you. Mine you can carry with you; his will intercept you without warning. You merely have to nullify his evil spells with my good ones and complete the mission."

"Seems simple enough," I said, disappointed. I had hoped for news of some dark tower defended by monsters with a fair damsel to rescue and magic to blow up the monsters and scale the tower wall. Ah, well; a mundanish adventure is still an adventure, I suppose.

"It should be," he agreed, with a certain subtle civilized nuance of the type I have already remarked on.

I looked into the bag of spells. It was filled with objects: a little white shield, a figure of a monster, a skull, a stone, a doll, a tangled length of vine, and a magic compass. "But these are toys!" I protested.

Yin laughed. "Hardly! They are inert representations. When you invoke them, they become full-sized and potent."

I lifted out the little skull. "I don't need a full-sized skull!"

"Allow me to explain. Because all Yang's spells and mine are equal and opposite, they have similar forms in many cases. King Gromden decided on the seven spell-sets that would be used in this contest; he wanted to allow a fair trial of magic, without endangering bystanders. Thus we are permitted no deadly explosive spells, or basilisk spells, or noxious contagious-disease spells. The seven are fairly straightforward, and you should not have trouble understanding them. His negative spells are black; my positive ones are white. So when you encounter his black skull, you must invoke my white skull. The black skull brings death; the white one brings just the opposite, life. They don't complete their effects instantly; you will have a minute or so to invoke the life-spell when you feel the death-spell taking hold."

"Oh." I reached into the bag for another spell. "Maybe you better explain them all for me so I know exactly what to do in my minute, each time." I brought out the little white shield. "What about this?"

"The white shield counters the black sword. A sword, of course, is negative; it exists for one purpose only, to cut and kill. A shield exists to preserve limb and life, and this shield, when invoked, will preserve yours."

It certainly made sense. I looked forward to seeing that magic black sword; that was the kind of sword and sorcery I understood. Maybe I'd take it on with my own sword before I invoked the shield, just to see how good it really was. I brought out the twisted vine. "This?"

"That is a representation of an eye-queue vine; note the eyeballs braided into it." I had thought those were beads, but now I saw that the tiny dots were pupils. "In nature, the eye-queue dispenses temporary or even illusory intelligence; the victim thinks he is far smarter than he is. But my vine is real; put that on your head and you will become far smarter than you are now, and the effect will last for several days, slowly fading. Most spells don't work well on the brain; that's why it can't be a permanent enhancement. But you don't want to use it before you encounter the black idiocy vine Yang has crafted, for you want it at full potency to counter his. The two are even at the start, but if you use mine two days before his strikes you, you will be somewhat duller than you are now, for several days, because the negative one will be fresher."

(Pun Count: 70)

quote:

"I see the point!" I agreed. "I'm just a backwoods barbarian, none too smart to begin with; I can't afford to be any worse than I am."

"Precisely," Yin acknowledged politely.

I brought out the compass. "Now I've heard of these magic gimmicks," I said. "Their little arrows always point north. But I already know where north is, and if I don't, I can find it by garden-variety backwoods magic, such as the moss that grows on the north sides of trees. Why do I need this?"

"This compass doesn't necessarily point north," he explained. "It points to the object you need to find and bring back to Castle Roogna. This spell you must invoke first, so you will know where to go."

"And Yang's compass will point the wrong way?" I asked. "I'll simply ignore it."

"Yang's compass will make this one point the wrong way," he clarified.

"Well, I'll just remember the direction, then. I have a good sense of direction, once I get my bearings; all barbarians do."

"Unfortunately, the object may move about, so you can not track it without the compass until you know its nature. Also, it is not merely the compass needle that points; it acts on your mind, so that you know in which direction to go. The black compass will prevent you from knowing where to go, even if you don't look at it."

"Oh," I said, getting slightly confused. "Then if the two compasses cancel each other, how do I find the object?"

"You must try to avoid the black compass until you find the object. After that, the black compass can't hurt you."

"How can I do that? If I know where Yang's spells are, I'll avoid them all!"

"Unfortunately, again, you can't; they will be placed in your path so that you will intercept them all in turn."

"I'll change my route!"

"No, your route has been divined by magic; Yang will place the spells in your way. But nothing can be totally predetermined. If you are alert, you will be able to spot them and nullify them with mine before they cause you unredeemable mischief. I am trusting you to do that." He smiled thinly.

The spells will be placed to confuse Jordan, so he'll overlook them, so he must remain alert. They can't be avoided, but he can prepare for them if he spots them in time.

quote:

I drew out the monster figurine. "This?"

"Yang's spell will summon a horrendous monster, one that will surely destroy you if not dealt with promptly. My spell will banish that monster, so you won't have to fight it at all."

"Oh," I said, disappointed. "I like fighting monsters."

"I assure you, you won't like this one," he said. "It's the tarasque."

"Never heard of it," I said disdainfully.

"Just keep an eye out for the black spell, and keep this white one handy. Don't use it on any routine monster."

I brought forth another spell, the doll. "This?"

"That particular set is one of the most insidious. Yang's spell will exchange your identity with that of the person or creature nearest you at the moment it is invoked. It won't hurt either of you specifically, but I doubt you'd be pleased if it wasn't nullified. For example, if the nearest creature is a fruit fly, you would find yourself in the body of the fruit fly, and it would have your man's body. My spell will restore both of you to your original bodies--provided you make sure they are adjacent when you invoke it."

"Um, yes, I wouldn't want to be a fruit fly," I agreed. I fished out the last spell, the stone. "And this falls on my head?"

"Not exactly. The black stone spell will cause you to become stone; the white one will return the stone to flesh. Both have a substantial overkill factor."

"Huh?"

"This one is powerful enough to turn several barbarians and their horses to stone, if allowed to run unchallenged. So the other can convert a large amount of stone to flesh."

"How does it know the difference between natural stone and converted stone?" I asked. "Is the type of stone different?"

"The spell merely acts on the closest stone to it. Since you will be invoking it as you are turning to stone, that will be you. Only you can invoke the white spells; that is a necessary safeguard."

I pictured a mimic-bird flying by, squawking, "Invoke! Invoke!" and bringing to life my entire bag of spells at once. I nodded; it was indeed a necessary safeguard. They had worked out the details of this challenge pretty well.

I took a deep breath. "So if I just keep this bag of spells handy, I'll be able to counter each of Yang's spells and complete the mission. That seems straightforward enough."

Of course, there will always be distractions and hostile terrain - especially on the return trip, when the object may distract Jordan.

quote:

"There is that," I agreed, wondering what "exponential" meant. I assumed it was just a highbrow Magician term for 'a lot.' "Just what is this object I'm supposed to fetch?"

Yin looked moderately embarrassed. "I'm afraid I am not permitted to tell you that. King Gromden decided that some things should be held as surprises to make the contest more, er, sporting. I have informed you of the nature of the spells and counterspells, giving you a certain advantage; some unknowns are necessary to counterbalance that. Perhaps Yang will tell you more. However--" His face darkened. "You must not believe everything Yang tells you. I am a Good Magician; he is an Evil Magician. Therefore I must always use my magic positively and speak the truth. He uses his magic negatively, and..." He let the words fade out.

"You mean he always lies? Then I'll just believe the opposite of what he says."

Yin looked further embarrassed. "It is not quite as simple as that. Truth is not necessarily the opposite of Untruth. For example, you could ask a liar what direction the nearest pillow-bush was, and he would tell you it was east when actually it was south; if you went the opposite way, you would go west and still be deceived."

"Well, at least I'd know one direction it wasn't--east. That would be some help."

"Not necessarily so. Yang does not lie, precisely; he seeks to deceive. If he can best deceive by indirection, or even by telling the truth in a way you will doubt, he will do that. Thus the bush might indeed be east--the one direction you would not go after asking him."

I began to appreciate the ramifications. The civilized folk had evidently developed lying into a sophisticated art! We barbarians were straightforward liars, when we lied at all.

"I really would prefer that you not talk to Yang at all," Yin said. "But the rules of this contest give us equal access. So all I can do is warn you not to trust him, either to speak the truth or to lie, for he will surely mislead you to his advantage. He is insidiously clever."

I shrugged. "Thanks for the warning. Magician. I'll be careful."

Jordan is bored for the rest of the day. He watches the Tapestry, and finds that the power of humankind has faded over time, and King Gromden isn't really believed in by the people any more. Gromden sends for him, and has recovered somewhat.

quote:

"My malady comes and goes," he said, "and each siege is to a new nadir. It derives as much from the soul as from the flesh. How I wish my wife and daughter were here! But--" He shrugged with deep regret. "A man can pay a lifetime for a moment's folly."

"That's for sure. King!" I agreed. "I remember when I found this tangle-seed and thought I'd plant it in our garden--"

"I summoned you in this period of my lucidity, because it may not last long. I have something important to tell you that I fear you will not believe."

"I'm just a barbarian. King," I reminded him. "I can believe almost anything."

He smiled tiredly. "That is surely why the prophecy named you for this mission; you have no preconceptions. But I fear you are being deceived unnecessarily, so simple fairness requires me to set some things straight."

"Sure, King." I nodded. "What's crooked?"

"This contest between Yin and Yang is not precisely what it seems. It is not really a trial to determine which Magician shall assume the throne of Xanth after me, but rather which one shall serve the other."

"Isn't that the same thing?" I asked. "The one who loses doesn't get to be King, so--"

"No, not the same," he asserted. "And that object you are supposed to fetch has certain qualities that will greatly complicate your task. This is no simple matter, Barbarian! Yin and Yang don't realize that I know any of this, but--"

"How do you know it. King?" I asked.

He smiled again. "I see that you, like they, question my remaining mental acuity. Indeed, I found the truth difficult to believe myself. Perhaps it will be more convincing if I demonstrate how I ascertained my information."

The king asks Jordan to fetch an object. Jordan brings him a chip of stone. Gromden examines it, and then reports that it was quarried by centaurs and hauled in four centuries ago, to be made into the wall.

quote:

"The centaur who hauled this particular stone had a speckled hide and gray tail," he continued. "He struck one hoof against a root and issued a bad word, for which he was duly reprimanded by his superior on the crew."

"Sure," I agreed noncommittally, convinced he was making this up.

"Later, before the castle was finished, the goblins and harpies attacked," he continued. "A harpy hen laid an egg that detonated close by, cracking the block, but the mortar held it in place. Then the goblins stormed the castle, and their dead piled up against the wall; the eyeball of one was wedged against this chip, somewhat to the chip's disgust."

I chuckled obligingly. I'll say this for the old boy: he could spin a yarn! Maybe not as fancy as the yarns of the tapestry, but still good enough.

"Then the goblin bodies were melted down, and some of the stain soaked into the chip. And it endured that way for centuries, until recently a bird brushed it, and the chip was finally dislodged and fell to the ground. There is a spell on this castle to keep it in repair, but age and neglect may have weakened that spell. You picked up the chip between the wall and the moat, near a yellow flower."

"Hey, I did!" I exclaimed, remembering. "How'd you know that. King?" For there had been no window covering that region; he could not have peered out and seen me.

He smiled. "It is my talent, the magic of Magician caliber that made me eligible to assume the throne. I can hold any object and see and hear its history. That is how I discovered the deception of Yin and Yang. A button fell from Yin's clothing; I picked it up and read it to determine whose it was, and found that it was his, but also--"

I glanced at him. He was looking worse; the effort of sitting up and talking was bad for him. "I'd better let you rest now. King," I said.

"But I must warn you," he protested weakly. "It is important for you to complete this mission, for Yin--"

He coughed and spat up some phlegm, and his words were choked off. I didn't want him to pass out while trying to talk to me, so I beat a hasty retreat. Barbarians don't really understand illness. "You sleep it off. King," I said at the door. "I'll talk to you again tomorrow."

The next day, Jordan meets with Yang, Yin's identical twin in black.

quote:

"Naturally," he agreed, unsmiling. "We two represent the Good and Evil aspects of magic. Let's get on with this. Where are the spells?"

"Huh?" I replied, perhaps not displaying my full intelligence, such as it was.

"Yin's spells, yokel. I need to check them so I know which ones to match."

"Oh." I had somehow thought he knew which spells, since the King had specified them in advance. Evidently I had misunderstood. I went to my room and brought down the bag.

Yang grabbed it and opened it and peered in. "The usual garbage," he said. "Yin never was one for much imagination."

"I think King Gromden selected the--"

"Him too. Dullards, all! No wonder Xanth is sliding to the depths in a basket case." He reached in and hauled out the eye-queue vine. "I can match this idiot-string readily."

"Well, sure, since your spells are equal and opposite."

"And this airhead," he said, bringing up the white skull, then dropping it back into the bag with a clunk. "And this freak." Now he had the white monster figurine. "And the old magic shield gig, yet! Yin's got no spunk at all!"

"Well, as I said, the King--"

"And as I said, him too! Now this one had possibilities," he said, bringing up the doll. "You ever been in someone else's body, bumpkin?"

"No, not exactly that way--"

"And the stone-age ploy," he continued, holding the white stone. He peered at me. "Take my advice, would-be hero; save yourself a lot of grief. Take a dive!"

"A what?"

"Just go out there and don't come back. Vanish from the scene."

I had trouble grasping this. "But the mission--"

"The mission is to determine whether Yin or Yang should be the next King. If you fail to bring back the object, that determination will be made. Yang will be King."

"But--not even to try--"

"Well, you have two ways to go, ignoramus. You can go out there and get yourself killed, or you can go out there and take it easy and survive. Either way, the result of the contest will be the same--but your own situation will differ. You have to consider your personal stake in this."

"I couldn't--I said I'd make an honest try, and--"

"You fool!" he cried indignantly. "Don't you know the contest is rigged? You can't bring back the object! The whole deal is a cruel lie, set up to appease the masses."

Yang tells Jordan that Gromden is senile and the entire thing is just a setup to avoid scandal. Yang claims he'll be the best king because he isn't constrained by ethics like Yin is, and therefore he can't lose. Jordan knows he's not as smart as Yang, but he has doubts.

quote:

"Of course you don't, rube," Yang agreed. "So I will tell you. When I am King, I will reward you handsomely. Do you like nymphs? I will give you a barrel of nymph spells, each nymph good for a day and willing to do anything you say. Do you like food? I will arrange a feast every night. Creature comforts? The most comfortable creatures shall be yours."

(Pun Count: 71)

quote:

"--whether I should accept the mission," I continued doggedly, "if I'm not even going to try. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect you were trying to bribe me to--"

"The light dawns at last, oaf! What is your price?"

"Besides, it sounds like a good adventure, and that's what I really came here for." I certainly didn't much like Yang!

"What kind of adventure is it to get your head bitten off by a monster? Dead men can't enjoy life!"

Actually, for me there was life after death; evidently he didn't know that. In his arrogance he hadn't bothered to check out my talent. I decided not to mention it. "Yin said you would try to deceive me."

Yang laughed loudly. "How do you know he's not lying, hick? Naturally he doesn't want you to listen to me!"

He had a point. Now I didn't know whom to believe. "I guess I'd just better go ahead with the mission, and do my best, and see how it turns out."

"Fool!" Yang dropped the bag of spells on the floor and stalked out.

I wished I could get some good advice, but there was no one with any sense around here except maybe the King, and he hadn't heard this conversation and might not believe it. Then I remembered his talent. He could evoke the dialogue or whatever from a button on my clothing; then he would believe!

I went to his room, but he was asleep, and I didn't want to wake him. He might go into another coughing fit. Well, what could he have said, anyway, except for me to do the mission as planned. Actually, he might already know about Yang's dishonesty, for he had been trying to tell me something the day before. Now, maybe, I knew the nature of his warning: that Yang would try not merely to deceive me, but also to corrupt me. Fortunately, I was not clever enough to be corrupted.

Pun Count: 71 by the end of Chapter 6.

# ? Aug 25, 2013 05:33

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 7. Jordan sets out with his spells, Pook, a new bow and some arrows. He also has some cherry bombs and pineapples. (Pun Count: 73) He starts heading northwest, and decides to save the finder-spell for later, hoping he can use it after meeting the black compass to pinpoint the object once he's in its general area. The trees again give him a hard time, but Jordan threatens them again and gets past. They soon find a mountain range, which Jordan decides to climb.

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Naturally, the obvious course is not necessarily the easiest one, as the firebird discovered when he tried to romance his reflection in the water and got his flame doused. But it was in the middling-rear of my mind that no one would have expected me to be dumb enough to go right over the top, so maybe there would be no evil spells there. This was really a test case--whether I could do the unexpected and mess up the predetermined path. If I couldn't be smart, I could at least be cunning.

The slope gets steep as they go, and Pook needs help. They keep climbing, and eventually decide to make camp as it gets cold and dark.

quote:

The air grew cool, then cold; we were entering the snow region. Sure enough, a flock of snow-birds wheeled in the sky, coming to investigate us. I didn't know much about snow-birds, but didn't trust them, and neither did Pook. We moved faster, seeking to avoid them, but they came over and buzzed us. White powder drifted down from their wings. Then they were off and out of sight.

(Pun Count: 74) Pook is nervous, however. Then Jordan notices that the snowflakes are just forming from the air. The snowflakes soon become very ornate, and he becomes distracted by their beauty. He guides Pook into a crevice, but he refuses to cross where the snowflakes form a bridge. Pook tells him it's a hallucination, and proves it because without illusion, he can't speak. The snow of the snow-birds is hallucinogenic.

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"That is precisely what I mean, lunkhead. The only big flake around here is you. Now sit tight while I get us out of it." He picked his way on up the mountain. "Real snow cancels out the mind-bending snow. The cold freezes it, I think. No matter what you see, don't get off my back."

"Why doesn't it zonk out your mind, too?"

"Don't be silly, barbarian. I'm just an animal."

I decided he knew better than I did. "Actually, it's sort of fun," I said.

Jordan continues to hallucinate as they head on, but eventually the cold gets to him and he can see reality. Jordan realizes Pook isn't tame, but considers him a friend. They stop in a not-quite-cave to get out of the wind and camp. Jordan heads to bed, but is awakened by a great danger.

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I knew instantly what it was: a snowsnake. How utterly stupid of me to forget about them! They were snow-white and snow-cold and lived cin snow; it was difficult to see or hear them in their habitat. But they were poisonous and they liked fresh meat.

(Pun Count ...75?) Jordan realizes the snakes can easily kill them and feigns sleep, trying to figure out how many there are. He can't see them in the dark, so he has to hope he's lucky. He calls for Pook, who squishes one snake as Jordan chops another. Now the snakes are fleeing and Jordan can easily clean them up. There are four dead by the end of it. Any survivors have fled. They spend the rest of the night on guard, then move on. By noon, they have crested the mountain ridge. That's when the black compass appears. Jordan briefly forgets his mission, then remembers it but has no idea where his target is.

quote:

And then I said: "Now's the time to invoke the finder-spell so I can restore my sense of location. Or whatever. That way I'll know where I'm going."

Pook did not protest, so I decided that made sense. That black compass had really reamed out my mind, leaving me fundamentally uncertain. I don't like having my mind messed with.

Jordan invokes the compass, and the snow starts to shift, as the ground below softens, having turned to flesh. Jordan doesn't understand as the entire mountain starts to turn. This shouldn't be happening. Both white and black compasses have now disappeared, their magic gone. Jordan pulls out the white stone, which is what should have done this, and realizes that Yang switched the spells around somehow. Pook heads on down the slope as best he can, for the entire mountain is now flesh. They slide down, and Jordan realizes that maybe giving up would be best.

quote:

But as I said, the oink-headedness of barbarians is legendary, and justly so. Even though it now seemed pointless, I was determined to push on. I had agreed to undertake this mission and I always did what I said I would do if I could, even if it made no sense at the time. And who could tell; maybe my talent would heal me from being stoned. Of course, that might take a few years...

As they continue down past the snow line, the mountain is stone again. They pause to eat, and Jordan realizes the mountain of flesh is shaking now, trying to get free of the stone. It is causing an avalanche. They decide to continue on. By darkness, the struggle of the mountain slows a bit, though it knocks a star from the sky, which lights the dry brush on fire. More stars start to fall, with more fires. They can't hurry, though, for they have to be careful of rocks. They go as best they can, but it isn't easy.

quote:

We came to a cul-de-sac. Ahead was a section so steep as to be clifflike, while the fires closed off the escape to the sides. We did not want to retreat back up the mountain, but did not want to stay in place, either. The ground was still shuddering with the motions of the tortured flesh, threatening to dislodge us from our perch. Behind, we heard the increasing sibilance of rushing water. We could soon be washed on down the cliff, becoming part of the waterfall!

There is something about personal hazard that sharpens my native cunning. "Diversion!" I exclaimed. Pook cocked an ear at me questioningly, perhaps fearing I was losing what little wit I possessed. "I'll show you!"

I dismounted and scrambled to the side, near the fire. I used my boot to scuff a channel in the ground, and my sword to cut through the brush in the way. Quickly I extended the channel upward at a slant, forming a bank on its lower side. I took advantage of whatever natural declivities there were, so that my channel curved but was reasonably deep. Pook was perplexed, but helped me excavate through a small ridge by bashing it with a hoof.

Naturally we struck a buried boulder, too big either to circle or to pry out. Now was the time for my reserve equipment! There was very little time for excavating around the boulder, so I poked a hole with the point of my sword and dropped in a cherry bomb. The explosion blew out a much bigger hole. Then I tossed in a pineapple and dived clear.

This explosion blew the top off the boulder. It crunched into a tree in the fire-zone; lucky for us it hadn't gone the other way! Now my channel was complete; all I had to do was touch it up where the explosion had messed it up.

The flow of water heads down the channel, and Jordan uses it to fight the fires, making a path for them. They make it down off the mountain at last, safe.

quote:

I pondered the significance of what had happened. So Yang had switched the spells; he must have done that while handling them in my presence. Of course he had known what they were; he had pretended ignorance so as to have a pretext to touch each one. He had distracted me with talk of the futility of my mission so that I would not catch on to the real nature of his skullduggery. His attempt to bribe me had not been serious; why bribe me when he already had the situation in hand? He had indeed deceived me, obliquely. Not for nothing had he remarked on my bumpkinishness! He had proved it.

He had, ironically, spoken the truth when he said he was convinced that I would fail. He had ensured that by cheating. Yin and the King thought this was a straightforward spell-vs.-spell contest set in the field; Yang knew it was an ignorant barbarian trotting blithely into disaster. Yin's spells were now just about as dangerous to me as Yang's!

Maybe the King had caught on, and had been about to warn me not to let Magician Yang touch those spells. I had been too quick to dismiss his effort. Talk of blundering fools! I had just done the cause of Barbarian Public Relations a singular disservice, by being precisely as oafish as charged.

How could I hope to complete this quest when I had no idea where the object was or what it was? I had climbed the mountain, back when I had some notion; was it because the object was up there? Should I go back to the fleshy peak? I could not be sure, but since I hadn't seen anything up there except snow, I concluded that wasn't it. Could the thing be on one of the other peaks of this range, and I had been about to check them all until I found it? Again I couldn't be sure. The black compass had somehow nullified my brain in this respect, so that I could not even decide where to search. The only confidence I had was that whatever I decided to do would be wrong, because of that hostile magic.

Jordan knows the compass must be in his spells somewhere, but he doesn't want to waste them guessing.

quote:

I had supposed this adventure was going to be slightly tame for my taste. Abruptly it had become slightly too challenging. Elsie had tried to warn me that there could be days like this; naturally I hadn't listened. A barbarian who thinks he can interact on an equal basis with Magicians is a fool, indeed!

Well, Pook had been farther from the black compass than I had been, so wasn't affected as much. Perhaps he, being equine, had not been touched at all. I would just have to trust his horse sense to get me where I was going. I suspected that Evil Magician Yang had not realized that I would have a sensible friend along.

With that modestly renewed sense of comfort, I slept.

Pun Count: 75 by the end of Chapter 7.

# ? Aug 25, 2013 19:21

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 8.

quote:

In the middle of the day, the heat forced us awake. Pook had been grazing in his sleep; that's a talent his kind has that I was coming to envy. I foraged for bread sticks, picking them off a stale bread tree; they were better than nothing. Then we went on.

(Pun Count: 76) They continue northwest, though Jordan is sure that's wrong.

quote:

As evening dawned--well, you know what I mean--we spied a region of caves and considered using one of them for the night. Barbarians, of course, are not far removed from cavemen. But in the shadows we heard myriad clicking sounds and saw little pincers lifted in eager anticipation of our flesh. Nickelpedes! No, these were smaller, but twice as fierce; they were dimepedes. They had ten little legs, and silvery pincers that could readily gouge out serrated disks of flesh. They couldn't do much to Pook's hooves, but all they had to do was scuttle to the flesh above and begin work. Certainly we were not about to lie down there!

(Pun Count: 78)

quote:

So we found a little lake with a littler island and leaped across to that. The dimepedes could not swim--in fact, they sank in water like so many bits of metal--so we knew they would not bother us in the night. And since they would be foraging in this region under cover of darkness--they could not tolerate the full light of day, because that showed up the dirt on them--no other creature would be in this vicinity. We had an ideal nocturnal retreat.

But as darkness closed, the fish came to the surface of the lake, and they were strange ones. One had little gauzy wings, so that she could fly just above the surface, and a little halo of light formed above her head. "What are you?" I asked, not expecting an answer, for few fish talk.

"She's an angelfish, man-visitor," a voice at the shore said. There was a fat-faced fish there, and it seemed that one could talk. "She will dance for you, if you wish. Angelfish are very nice creatures."

(Pun Count: 79)

quote:

"Well, sure," I agreed, seeing no harm in it. Some civilized folk think there is nothing good in the wilderness, but we uncivilized folk know that there are fewer threats to man among wild creatures than there are among our own violent kind.

The angelfish stood on her tail just over the water, buzzed her wings, and did a pirouette. Then she leaped and circled and splashed lightly against the lake; the light from her halo was enough to make her reflection visible in the still water, so that there seemed to be two of her. One was upright, above the surface, and the other was inverted, below. It was a pretty effect.

Then another fish appeared, his motions sending ripples that broke up the reflection of the first, spoiling the effect. He hoisted himself up; he lacked wings, but somehow was able to walk the surface. He was reddish and had little horns, and his tail curved back behind him as he stood, ending in a barb.

"And there's the devilfish," the fat announcer said. "He always shows up to spoil things."

(Pun Count: 80)

quote:

Indeed it was so, for the angelfish made a little bubbly scream and fled, the devilfish chasing her with an evil leer on his gills. But she could not leave the region of the water, and the lake was small, so they went round and round in circles.

Suddenly I jumped. Something had cut my foot, which was near the water. I looked--and saw a cuttlefish, its tentacles like knives, brandishing those little blades at my tender toes. I had taken off my boots to air my stinking feet--barbarian feet can be pretty bad when confined, and when the stench gets so thick it squishes, it's time to let it out--so now they were vulnerable. "Get away from me, you creep!" I snapped, grabbing a boot and flailing with it.

(Pun Count: 81)

quote:

The fish dived below the surface. My boot struck the fringe of water--and stuck. Now, I knew boots could get pretty gunky, but they had never stuck to water before! I yanked--and found that something had clamped onto the boot's toe. It had giant dull pincers--and when I hauled harder, the whole thing came up, and I saw it was nothing but pincers, broad serrated things. "What's this?" I demanded.

"A shellfish, of course," the other fish replied.

"How do I get it off my boot?"

"Well, it's afraid of starfish--"

I looked into the dark sky. There was a star in the shape of a fish, but it was out of reach. Some starfish shine brightly in the water, while others hover in the night sky; I suppose there is enough water up there for them. But my animal cunning was operating. "Let go, shellfish, or I'll fetch down that starfish," I threatened.

(Pun Count: 82)

quote:

Immediately the shellfish dropped off my boot and sank back in the water. I had bluffed it.

"You should have eaten it instead," the other fish said. "And the cuttlefish too."

"They wouldn't have liked that," I said.

"Who cares what they like? They don't count! Nobody counts but Number One!"

My brow creased. "What kind of fish are you?"

"I thought you'd never ask! I am a sel-fish, of course."

"Sell fish? What do you sell?"

"Instant gratification--that's the selfish way. Don't worry about the welfare of others!"

(Pun Count: 84)

quote:

"Don't listen to him!" the angelfish called, pausing in her flight. Then she screamed, for in that moment of distraction the devilfish had caught up with her. He wrapped his fins about her quivering body and bore her down despite her struggles. The two disappeared under the surface, and only her little halo remained floating on the water.

"He always wanted to catch an angel like her," the selfish said smugly. "She won't be needing that halo any more--not after he's through compromising her."

I was angry about the fate of the pretty angelfish. "Something's fishy about your attitude," I said. I fished the halo out of the water, but it disintegrated in my hand. Halos were not for such as I.

(Pun Count: 85) Seriously. Fish rape.

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"You're a fool," the sel-fish said witheringly and swam away.

"I surely am," I said under my breath. People like me were always getting victimized by clever, unscrupulous people like Magician Yang, just as the angelfish was ravished by the devilfish. Yet somehow I didn't care to trade places with the obvious winners. I couldn't make much sense of my own attitude; it was simply the way I was. Just an ignorant barbarian. I slept, discontented.

They head onwards the next day, finding a strange gateway of trees. They don't like it, but it seems the only path. Soon, they are beset by a swarm of flies.

quote:

I muttered a repeller-spell. Some people claimed spoken spells didn't work in Xanth, but in my opinion those folk hadn't given them a fair trial. I used spells to make fire, put myself to sleep, abolish warts, adjust my eyes to sudden changes of light, ease pain, and the like; that sort of magic generally worked for me. Of course, it helped to have two magic stones to strike together for the first spark for the fire and to relax properly before using the sleep-spell; the magic took weeks or months to work on the warts and several seconds on the eyes; and there was only so much that incidental magic could do for pain. But weak magic was better than none at all, I always said, knocking on wood. Sometimes, when I was very tired and really needed to sleep, the sleep-spell zonked me out instantly, and that was a blessing. One simply had to understand the natural limitations of magic; then it worked just fine. Once in a while one encountered a bum spell, one that simply did not perform as advertised; then it was simply a matter of reporting it to the Barbarian Better Business Bureau, so that no one else would be deceived into using that spell.

Anyway, I used the fly-spook-spell, but that swarm came right on at us. Then I saw that these were not ordinary flies; they were dragonflies, resistive to such little magic. Normally dragonflies did not deign to bother people, but buzzed about their own business, preying on other bugs and keeping company with real dragons. On occasion, a dragonfly would adopt someone's garden, keeping it clear of bugs. But these ones were different; they were wild, not tame, and they were out after us.

(Pun Count: 86) They fly the fire of the dragonflies, with Jordan cutting at those that get close. They spiral out and explode when they land. The dragonflies form up to take another pass, but Jordan deflects their flame back at them with his sword. Still, if the flies scatter, he can't block them all. However, they retreat for no clear reason. That's when the next evil spell flashes - the black monster. Jordan needs the monster-banish, but he's not sure which spell that is. They hear something coming after them and flee, instead. They end up trapped in a maze of foliage, as the thing chases them.

quote:

And another turn! This was awkward as anything! Now all of the pursuer came into view, and I recognized it at last--the tarasque. Of course--Yin had warned me of it. Of all the creatures I might have encountered here, this was the one I least preferred, now that I grasped its nature. The tarasque was technically a dragon, but not a normal one, for it possessed certain non-reptilian attributes. Its head was that of an ant-lion, it had six ursine legs--we don't have what the Mundanes call bears in Xanth, but we do have their legs--a big spiked carapace, and an ugly reptilian tail. All in all, an ugly customer.

They keep outpacing it, but the maze is keeping them from truly escaping it. Jordan decides he has to risk a spell. He pulls out the monster figure and invokes it, but it is, of course, not the right spell.

quote:

My awareness enlarged as the white object faded from my hand. I knew we were in a maze-warren that might have only one exit, so that the tarasque could run down unwary prey at his leisure. That way the monster's slowness did not matter. Just as I had worn down Pook when I stalked him and herded him into an inescapable situation, so the tarasque would wear us down. Flight would not accomplish anything except tiring us out, and that was no good. It would be better to stand and fight while we were strong.

"Pick a good place to ambush the monster," I told Pook. "We'll fight." He wiggled an ear in acknowledgment.

One thing about tripping the evil spell--it meant we were still on course for the object, since the spells had been placed along that course. In fact--another light bulb sprouted momentarily above my head, brightening the whole region but not, alas, blinding the tarasque--that course was predestined. Yang knew where to place his spells because he knew where I was going to go, according to the prophecy. There really should be a law against such prophecies, I thought darkly. But this was actually good news for me. Since my route was predestined, I did not even need the finder-spell; I would get to the object regardless. In fact, I couldn't avoid it.

(Pun Count: 87)

quote:

That also explained why Yang had tried to bribe me to quit. If he really believed I would fail, he had no need of bribery. But if my route was predestined, then I would find the object--unless I deliberately gave up the mission. It was not failure that stalked me, but success--assuming I could handle the hazards along the way. Presumably, if I got permanently killed, that would be the same as giving up, and the remainder of my predestined route would be voided.

Now why was all this obvious to me now, when it had been obscure before? Was I thinking better? And the answer was yes, I was thinking quite a bit better. I was more intelligent than I had been. That meant that I had invoked Magician Yin's spell of intelligence. It had been intended to counteract Yang's lurking spell of idiocy, but now had simply increased my normal level. I was a barbarian genius!

The irony was that genius is wasted on a barbarian. It doesn't take brains to swing a sword, it takes muscle. No really smart man would be a barbarian. Another counter-spell had been wasted.

Well, I was stuck with it. Could intelligence help me escape the monster? That was doubtful. Given a little time, I could devise a weapon from plucked foliage that would cause the tarasque to draw into his shell and be helpless--but I had no time. The smartest thing to do was to stay out of the monster's labyrinth; I would have realized that, had I invoked this spell before entering. So it wasn't much help to me at the moment. Nevertheless, being smart couldn't hurt.

Quickly I reviewed what I could recall about the tarasque. I had thought I had never heard of it, but I had merely forgotten. There turned out to be more information stored in the crannies of my brain than I had realized; bits and pieces of things I had heard elsewhere in my life and not remembered until this moment of heightened intelligence. The tarasque was a deadly monster, and not a stupid one. It preyed only on live, healthy creatures, so that it would not pick up any loathsome diseases or suffer indigestion. It avoided carrion and tainted meat. The classier predators were like that; griffins were notoriously finicky, for example.

There was my strategy of survival! I would try to kill the tarasque--but if I failed, I would pretend to be tainted. Then it would not eat me, and my talent in due course would restore me to full health. It was not the easiest way to get through, but it was feasible.

What, then, of Pook? He could not heal rapidly, or grow back lost limbs, or return from death. "Pook, if I lose, you take off immediately. You must escape while the tarasque is tending to me."

He neighed in negation. "No, I will heal," I assured him. "You need time to find your way out of the maze. I can give you that time."

He snorted, disliking this, obviously believing that I was exaggerating my healing propensity, but he assented.

They find a good spot for ambush and ait. Jordan misses a chance to strike its torso, however, and its head is rather nasty. He draws his sword and dismounts, trying to talk, but naturally the monster just roars.

quote:

"I feel obliged to advise you that I am a primitive warrior type, excellent with my weapons," I said. Too bad the monster's carapace was so sturdy; it would resist the blast of a pineapple. Otherwise I would have had an easy way out. "If you should choose to back off now, I will understand."

The tarasque took a step forward. Its three left legs moved together, then its three right legs. It opened its mouth marvelously wide, so that I could readily perceive exactly how horrendous its jaws were. Those teeth were like a forest of spikes, some narrowing to points, some splitting into multiple cutting ridges, some serrated like the surface of a saw. There were ledges and valleys and sculptured contours that I was sure meshed neatly with their opposite numbers when those jaws came together; hapless indeed the creature on whom those jaws closed!

I tried once more, for courtesy requires three attempts at peaceful settlement. "There is one special thing you should know about me--"

The tarasque pounced, mouth gaped wide, another roar forming in the tonsil region.

Ah, well, I had tried. Now I fought, free of any reservations. I'm actually pretty good in that sort of circumstance. I swung my blade about with the legendary skill for which barbarians are justly famed. It blurred in an arc that passed through the gaping mouth and severed the tongue, a tonsil, and the forming roar. That cut the bite short; the jaws clapped together as my sword exited, and spurting blood overlapped those finely chiseled, clean white teeth.

"I did try to warn you, turtle-shell," I said. "I am not your routine terrified, helpless prey; I am a swordsman. You will take severe injuries and perhaps die, if you persist in this quarrel."

The tarasque's eyes blazed. That was, of course, the point to my discussion: to enrage the creature beyond the edge of reason. It is Standard Barbarian Artifice Number Three, verbal aggravation of subject. Some weak swordsmen with strong tongues do very well on the adventure circuit, I understand.

The monster nudged forward, swiping at me with a massive forepaw. I ducked back, and the swipe missed and caught the trunk of the tree to my right, gouging out four channels of bark. The tree shuddered and groaned woodenly, and sap dripped from the wounds. That from channel number 4 smelled very good.

But I had concerns of my own. I poked my point at the monster's left eye. The tarasque ducked back alertly, avoiding the thrust. My first strike had caught it by surprise, but now it was wary. Having one's tongue cut off tends to facilitate caution. So I struck down at its black nose and lopped off two whiskers.

That made the creature angry! The loss of those whiskers disfigured its puss, and it seemed the monster was vain about its appearance. The severed tongue and tonsil didn't show, but those whiskers did! The tarasque let out a blood-flecked scream and pounced at me. Of course I ducked down and jabbed the point of my sword up, seeking to cut the exposed throat. The monster spun aside just barely in time, lost its balance, and crashed against the clawed tree.

Jordan hits it in the shell to no effect, and is herded outside of his walled area. The tarasque turns, and Jordan grabs it and gets on top of it. It tries to bite him but can't reach. He chops off an ear. It can't buck him off, but he can't really hurt it. Its tial whiops up and slaps him, and Jordan can't evn turn to face it or it'll take out an eye. Getting away means getting back in range of the claws and teeth. Instead, he backs his way toward the tail, so that he can saw at its base. It causes the tarasque great pain, and it dislodges him by jumping. He stabs it in the face, making it even angrier. He cuts off a paw as it attacks, but it disarms him. He is backed iinto a corner, but he draws his knife and stabs it in the nose, twisting it. It jerks back, and he goes for the throat. He unds up underneath it, but the monster has no real idea how to deal with that. He stabs it again, and it loses its balance as it jerks back. He finds the legs aren't armored, either, and he can slice at those. However, it flops down on top of his hand, trapping him and breaking his leg after. Then he has to find it off with one hand, as his other hand is trapped by a leg. It nearly rips his arm off, then tries to eat him. Pook flees, briefly distracting the tarasque, and when it stops paying attention, he turns and kicks it in the back, hurling it off Jordan and sending it after Pook. Jordan is unconscious, and can't really object. Pook runs the maze backwards, outpacing the tarasque but not by much. The entrance, however, is closed by vines. The tarasque comes up behind him, and Pook leaps through the vines, kicking back at the tarasque as it comes. Then he gets out. The tarasque roars at the vines, scaring them away, and heads after Pook. But now, Pook is in his own element. He lures the tarasque about, as pookas can, and buys time for Jordan to heal.

quote:

Pook led the tarasque to the region of caves we had passed--the ones with the dimepedes. What was he contemplating? He could not hide there, for the dimes would nickel him to death.

But it turned out he was more canny than that. Pook was a master of traps, as I had discovered when I first chased him down. He went and stood in a patch of sunlight before a deep-dark cave. The dimes avoided sun, so they did not show their silvery little snoots.

The tarasque came up. It was a solid creature, with its heavy carapace, and maybe its injuries were telling; it had slowed and was huffing loudly. But now it thought it had trapped the horse, and it charged.

Pook stepped aside, letting the monster burst into the cave. It disappeared into the darkness. There was a pause, then a roar that shook the hillside. The tarasque had discovered the dimepedes, or vice versa! Then the monster started to back out--but Pook braced himself and kicked with his hind hooves again at the rear of the carapace, using his horsepower to shove the monster back in.

It was a beautiful ploy--but alas, not enough. The tarasque weighed more than Pook did, its huge shell made it invulnerable to kicks, and it had strong reason to get out. It hunkered down and shoved, and Pook could not confine it. Soon it got its head clear, pawed away the clinging dimepedes, and rotated to face the horse.

Pook was no coward. He stepped close to the tarasque's face and spun about. His chains flung out and whipped across the dragon's head, knocking out a tooth or two, or maybe an eyeball. The monster was so surprised it pulled its head and forelegs back inside its shell--whereupon Pook kicked sand and dirt in after the head.

The tarasque becomes enraged, heading for Pook. He kicks it in the face, breaking its nose.

quote:

Then the horse sniffed, smelling something. Quickly he trotted to the side, where a ragweed bush grew. He snatched a rag between his teeth, ripped it off, held his breath, and trotted back to the tarasque, whose head was just emerging again from the carapace. Pook flung the rag onto the monster's nose and backed out of the way.

(Pun Count: 88)

quote:

Now, ragweed was not a normal choice for cloth, because of a special and objectionable quality of the rags. No one wove ragweed into rugs or clothing, except perhaps as a practical joke, and not just because the rags were ugly. But in this case--

The tarasque sneezed. That was what ragweed did. It caused uncontrollable sneezing. Some creatures could sneeze for days after a single whiff; others could struggle to keep their heads attached. Once the monster got a good, deep whiff of the potent rag--

It was some sneeze. The blast from it blew the leaves off bushes and stirred up little dust devils, who uttered unkind syllables and fled. The dragon's whole body slid back a distance because of the recoil. The next sneeze slid it back some more, and the third put its tail well inside the cave. Half a dozen more sneezes had the tarasque all the way back in the cave.

Pook trotted over to the ragweed and harvested another rag. The sneeze-dust practically oozed from it, itching to do its nefarious job. Pook tossed it into the cave, then scrambled up the hill, found some debris, and kicked it down. He managed to start a minor avalanche that piled up junk before the cave, partially blocking it. That wouldn't stop the monster from powering out, of course, but it did tend to enclose the air and deflect the wind from the sneezes, so that the magic sneeze-dust from the rag remained mostly inside the cave. That meant the tarasque had to keep inhaling it, which in turn meant continued sneezing.

The dimepedes are also sneezing, and attacking the tarasque. Pook then heads back to the maze, having defeated the monster. Jordan is healing, but the dragonflies swarm him just as he wakes up. He gets burned terribly, losing his sight and smell and hearing - they do worse than the tarasque, in fact. Pook charges in and knocks the flies about, saving Jordan but thinking him horribly wounded. (Well, he is, but he'll heal.) Pook rolls him out of the maze, covering him in dirt, and manages to use a branch to get Jordan onto his back. Then Pook heads on northwest, seeking help. By the end of the day, Jordan begins to stir as Pook finds a cabin.

Pun Count: 88 by the end of Chapter 8.

# ? Aug 25, 2013 21:05

Alopex: May 31, 2012; This is the sleeve I have chosen.

Reminder that the framing device here is that this is a story being told to a five year old girl.

If I were Jordan, I'd leave about the bits about the fish rape. Seriously, man, even for a barbarian. He just watched the poor thing get chased around and get caught only because she warned him about the shelfish? I know Anthony sets the bar pretty low for likeable protagonists but this is fairly bad.

# ? Aug 25, 2013 22:50

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# ? May 14, 2024 11:06

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Chapter 9.

quote:

I woke in a bed of fragrant ferns. I saw the interior of the cabin, neatly ordered, with shelves bearing spices and herbs. In a corner was a strange, large, hollow gourd with strings stretched lengthwise across it. And sitting in a wicker chair was a quite pretty young woman in a brown dress.

She saw me react and got up to approach me. "So you are recovering," she said in a low voice. "I wasn't certain you would."

"Oh, I always did before," I said. My body ached, but I knew that would soon pass as the healing was completed.

"Your horse brought you in," she said. "You seem to have been pretty badly burned."

That was when I realized that the dragonflies had returned. The awareness had faded out, but now I remembered. "Yes."

"I don't get many visitors," the woman said. "So I may be rusty on the amenities. Let me just say that my name is Threnody. I live alone and like it, and we'll get along just fine if you keep your hands to yourself and depart as soon as you are able. Your horse is grazing outside."

So this was a woman who wanted to be left alone. Some were like that; I never did quite understand why. Well, I had never been one to force my attentions on anyone. Barbarians generally encountered enough willing women so that they had little taste for unwilling ones, and I don't care what the civilized folk claim to the contrary.

"I am Jordan the Adventurer, I heal very fast, and I have a mission to accomplish, so I'll be on my way soon enough," I said. "I thank you for taking care of me while I was unconscious; I must have been pretty dirty."

"You certainly were! I had to wash you all over. Sand was virtually embedded in your hide. I thought you were dead, but you weren't as far gone as it seemed. I put some ointments on your burns and let you rest. You must have blundered into a dragonfly nest." She eyed me appraisingly. "I must say, you do have a hardy constitution; you're quite a robust figure of a man."

"Yeah, I'm a genuine barbarian, mostly brawn, not too much brain," I said, smiling. Actually, I was pretty smart at the moment, because of the eye-queue spell I had accidentally invoked. "Fortunately, Pook is on hand to take care of me."

"Pook," she repeated. "Your horse? Does that mean--?"

"Yes, he is a pooka, a ghost horse. That's why he wears those chains."

"You tamed a ghost horse?" she asked, surprised.

"No. We're just friends."

She laughed. She was beautiful when she did that. "Well, he's loyal. He could have dumped you off anywhere and left you to die." She glanced toward the kitchen corner. "Are you well enough yet to eat?"

"Oh, yes, I'm hungry!"

"You are recovering swiftly! You look better already."

"Yes, I'm always hungry after a fatal injury," I agreed.

Again she laughed, taking this as humor. She poured some gruel from the pot on her hearth into a wooden bowl and brought it to me. The stuff was as dark and liquid as her hair, but it tasted good and seemed to be nutritious; I felt rapidly stronger.

"I have a trouser-tree growing in my yard," she said. "Never thought I'd need it, as I prefer dresses." She held up a pair of brown jeans. "These should fit you."

"Thank you," I said. I got out of the fern bed and into the jeans, and they did fit tolerably well.

"That's amazing," she remarked, watching. Evidently she wasn't one of those prudish civilized women, though in other respects she did seem civilized. "Your skin is almost whole again! You were so badly burned--"

I shrugged. "Guess it looked worse than it was." I could have explained about my talent, but it didn't seem necessary, since I was about to leave. Actually, I wasn't paying full attention to her, as my ensmartened brain was distracted by philosophical insights and intellectual exercises it hadn't been interested in before. Today I can only vaguely appreciate the mental convolutions I indulged in then, for now I am of only ordinary smartness. That is why I am not telling this story in the intelligent way I could have told it then.

Yet I think, in retrospect, that I must have made the error of overlooking the obvious in the course of my pursuit of the esoteric, for I really did not act very smart in Threnody's house. Some extremely smart people are sort of dull about practical details.

Jordan explains his mission to Threnody.

quote:

"Castle Roogna?" she repeated, interested in a peculiar kind of way. I should have noticed that, but didn't, then.

He explains that Gromden is dying and that Yin and Yang are having a contest. He doesn't know what the object he has to fetch is.

quote:

"Sit down, Jordan," she said. "Let me tell you a story that you may not have heard. I'll serve you some wine."

"Oh, sure. Thanks," I was always willing to be sociable.

Threnody mixed some fluids in a cup, which surprised me, for I had always thought wine came directly from wineskins grown by wine-lilies. She brought the cup to me, and I drank it while she talked. It was pungent stuff, with a bitter aftertaste but pretty good. Barbarians don't have much taste, anyway.

"King Gromden had a child, a daughter," Threnody said.

"Oh, sure. He told me."

"What else did he tell you about her?"

"Nothing much. Just that his wife and child had gone away and he missed them something awful." I burped; that wine was bubbling up inside me.

"There was a bit more to the story than that," Threnody said.

"Well, he's pretty lonely now." Then my intelligence had a flash. "Yang mentioned scandal; maybe that was--"

She was silent a moment, then resumed her story as if she had not been interrupted. "King Gromden's daughter was the apple of his eye, and indeed she was said to be very pretty. His wife grew jealous of the attention the child got and put a curse on her: if she remained at Castle Roogna, the castle would fall. This saddened the King very much, but he had to preserve the capital of Xanth at all costs, so he sent the girl away. Because he was angry with the Queen for putting on that curse, he sent her away, too. But before the Queen departed, she put a curse on him also. That was her talent, of course--curses. She came from cursefolk stock, deep in southern Xanth; some call those folk fiends. She caused him to forget the nature of the first curse.

"So ever after, the King sought his banished daughter, not realizing that he himself had banished her, and for good reason. He finally located her, but she remembered the curse and refused to return with him to Castle Roogna. He could not understand why, for when she told him of the curse, he immediately forgot. A good curse can't be circumvented just by a person's being told its nature; it operates until revoked, or until it just wears out, and the curses of the curse-fiends don't wear out.

"Since he could not grasp the truth and insisted on an answer, she had to tell him a lie instead, cruel as it was: that she preferred to live in the open wilderness instead of in a gloomy old castle. He kept trying to find ways to change her mind, but was never successful."

"That's very interesting," I said. "He never said anything to me about the curses."

"Naturally not. He remembers his daughter's absence, though," Threnody said. "And he swore he would find a way to bring her back and make her happy at Castle Roogna. In fact, he hoped she would marry his successor, the next King of Xanth, so his line would continue in power. The throne of Xanth is not hereditary, as it goes from Magician to Magician, but sometimes there is a lineage through the female side. His daughter wasn't a Sorceress, of course, but that doesn't matter for wives."

"Well, I guess that didn't work out." I set down my empty mug. "His successor will be Yin or Yang, and I don't think either is much interested in marriage right now."

"They are interested. The people would be more ready to accept a Magician who married the prior King's daughter, and her magic power would help him reign, so she is a moderately valuable property as well as being physically attractive. Men tend to put too much stress on the latter aspect."

"Um, yes," I agreed, contemplating Threnody's own figure.

"In any event, they would not have a choice. The King arranged it so that neither could become King unless he married her."

My head was whirling pleasantly. That was strong wine!

"Maybe he'll spring that detail on the winner, once I bring back the object," I said. "But it will be too bad, because if her return to the castle means it will fall--"

"Yes, it is a cruel situation," she agreed. "That girl will never return to Castle Roogna, because she loves her father and loves Xanth, nothing else. She will do anything to prevent her return, no matter who the next king is, though it breaks her father's heart. She has no choice."

"Well, it's not my business," I said, standing. "I just have to fetch the--"

I reeled, staggered, lost my balance, and fell against the bed. Something was wrong!

Threnody came to me. "I'm sorry I had to poison you, barbarian," she said. "But if you should succeed in your mission, and Yin becomes King, he will do what King Gromden wants, and marry Gromden's daughter and keep her at Castle Roogna. I must prevent that, for when Castle Roogna falls, so does the human domination of Xanth."

"But--" I protested groggily.

"You see, barbarian innocent, I am King Gromden's daughter," she said. "I felt it only fair to let you understand why I had to kill you. Better that the life of one foolish adventurer be forfeit than that Castle Roogna should fall. It is nothing personal; you seem like a nice person, for a barbarian."

Then I passed out, and I suppose I died, for the poison had spread all through my system and it was potent stuff. Threnody dragged my body across the floor--she turned out to be pretty strong for a woman--and to a trapdoor in the back of the cabin and shoved me in.

The chute drops into the Gap, and the fall and poison together kill Jordan. Pook goes to look, and he sets about getting down into the Gap via the west, where it intersects the sea.

quote:

I was not a pretty sight. My legs were broken, and my head had cracked open and spilled some of its contents out. Nothing important, just some gray matter that I suppose was stuffing or insulation. But it was messy, and there was a good deal of blood spread about. I was as dead as I had ever been. My sword was lying nearby, bent and chipped, too. That makes me sad to contemplate, for that sword had served me well and could not heal itself.

Pook used his hoof to scrape the pieces and gunk into a pile; he pushed the pile onto a big leaf and made as good a bundle as he could manage. There was dirt and garbage mixed in, of course, but that couldn't be helped.

Pook shoved the bag around, trying to figure out how to carry it, but could not. So he cast about for a decent burial spot, believing me to be finished. There was none. He decided to take me to the shore--but that was some distance away. What was he to do?

He managed to get the top of the bundle knotted together somewhat, then hooked one of his chains through it and the sword's guard and dragged them. The bundle bumped across the terrain, getting its contents thoroughly mixed. When Pook reached the small sandy beach where the chasm joined the ocean, he left the bag at the edge and set to work excavating a hole with his hooves. Obviously he intended to bury the remains. He was, after all, a ghost horse; he knew about death and burial.

But when the hole got deep, water seeped in. Disgusted, he moved farther from the sea and started a new hole. He didn't want my remains to get wet; maybe he thought I'd be uncomfortable if I rotted in the water. But the new hole, too, filled with water. He moved yet farther away--but here it was rocky, impossible to dig with hooves.

Pook pondered. Then he got smart again. What about sea burial? He could weight the bag down with a big rock and sink it in the sea. Evidently he thought my remains wouldn't be as uncomfortable in deep water. But there were several problems. For one thing, he had no way to tie a rock to the bundle. Even if he had good vines, he couldn't tie knots in them. And he knew the big wrapping-leaf would soon disintegrate in the seawater, releasing its contents. As he peered out across the water, he saw a lurking sea monster, licking its chops. He knew I didn't like getting eaten by monsters. Good thing that monster hadn't been there when Pook had jumped into the sea!

Finally he shrugged and resumed dragging the bundle. He intended to get it to a suitable burial place, no matter how much effort it took.

Pook continues dragging the corpse around until nightfall, when he stops, afraid of falling, and takes a nap. However, he has to scare a goblin away and then smells a harpy coming for the carrion. He scares her away, too.

quote:

Then a smell developed. Pook sniffed and snorted, disliking it. For a moment he might have been afraid the stuff in the bag was decomposing. Then he heard crass flapping and realized it was a harpy. The ugly-faced avian crone loomed near, sensing her type of prey: namely, something helpless. But Pook squealed warning and reared up, milling his forehooves and clanking his chains, and she reconsidered. "I didn't know that carrion was yours, pooka!" she screeched. "Most nags don't eat meat. Next time, let a girl know, you blippety blip!" I doubt I am repeating the exact words she used, as they weren't nice words; they flattened Pook's ears against his head and caused the scuttlings in the vicinity to curl up and die

In this manner the ghost horse guarded the bag during the night, and never was there a more loyal and forlorn service rendered. Pook thought he was protecting the remains for decent burial; actually, he was giving me time to heal. My talent had both poison and the fatal fall to nullify, and that was a considerable task. I doubt that I had ever before been killed quite so dead. But all my pieces were there, plus some dirt for good measure; I had been granted a day and a night without disturbance and I was indeed on the mend. As the light of morning peeped hesitantly over the brink and crept into the chasm.

Jordan awakens, and nearly kills Pook form shock. He is weak, but awakened.

quote:

"Say, didn't I hear a harpy in the night?" I inquired. "You shouldn't have driven her off; you should have used her for stork fodder."

Then I paused, appalled, while Pook looked at me as if I had sprouted demon's horns. What was I saying? Nobody got that close to a harpy! How could I have spawned such a dirty thought?

Actually, it's clear now, though it was muddy then. Some of that dirt had gotten scooped up with my remains and tied in the bag--that dirt had gotten caught in my cracked head as it healed, and now I had a dirty mind. Too bad--but, of course, it had been a very difficult feat of healing.

(Pun Count: 89)

quote:

After a moment, Pook recovered from his amazement and disgust, decided it was really me back alive, and came to nuzzle my hand. "Oh, didn't you understand about me?" I asked him, realizing that he hadn't actually seen me heal before, not all the way from death. He had always been away, avoiding dragons or searching for an exit from Callicantzari caves or battling a tarasque. "My magic talent is to heal rapidly from wounds or whatever. If I lose part of my body, I regrow it; if I am killed, I recover. You must have collected everything together for me, so I could recover most rapidly. Thank you, Pook; that was very nice of you."

He just stood there, embarrassed. I petted him on the neck. Horses have excellent necks for petting; chickens don't. "I see you brought the bag of spells along also. And my sword. That's good; those spells may be jumbled, but I'll probably need them. I still have my mission to complete." I looked around. "But how did we get here on the slope? Last I remember. Threnody had given me poison--but it shouldn't have taken me a day and a night to recover from that." I glanced at my body. "And that wouldn't account for the destruction of my clothing and all the new flesh I have grown. I've just been through a major healing."

Pook gestured with his head, indicating the chasm. "You mean she dumped me down there?" I asked. "I must have splattered like a broken egg!" He nodded agreement. Now I understood just how much he had done for me, and what it had meant when he gave me his friendship. I knew I owed him a big one.

We climbed on up the slope, slowly, for I was weak and he was tired. As I moved, I remembered what Threnody had said just before I died. She was King Gromden's daughter, cursed to stay away from Castle Roogna lest it fail, and afraid that Magician Yin would marry her and make her return if he became King. I could see her concern--but it seemed somewhat extreme for her to murder me so abruptly just for that. I had nothing to do with it, really. Well, not quite true; if I succeeded in my mission, then Yin would become King, and the heat would be on Threnody. But why couldn't she simply refuse to marry him, or refuse to return to Castle Roogna? She had said no to her father the King; she could say no to Magician Yin. She didn't have to kill me to prevent Yin from winning; she could have asked me not to mention her whereabouts, or she could have moved to some other, hidden place before I returned to the castle. Thus her action didn't seem to make sense, and that bothered me, for she was a most attractive woman. A woman I would have been happy to--

Then I wondered just how much sense my own thoughts were making. But I had an excuse--the dirt mixed up with the other gunk in my head. For all I knew, some rich, brown dirt was a good substitute for the useless gray stuff that had spilled; still, my head wasn't quite the way it had been. Of course, as I said, I didn't realize this at the time, for I hadn't seen myself splat in the Gap Chasm. Nevertheless, my mind did feel somewhat like an egg scrambled in sand. For one thing, I seemed to have lost most of the advantage of the intelligence spell, since no more complex philosophic thoughts churned about inside my skull. Maybe the eye-queue spell had compensated for the mixing my skull-innards had received, resulting in approximately normal intellect. Had I been really smart, I could have figured out exactly what made sense about Threnody and maybe saved myself an extraordinary amount of grief. But the eyeballs of the eye-queue must have been pointed every which way, so they couldn't quite focus on the obvious. I can't say, even now, how my thoughts ran then; I guess I hadn't properly appreciated the extent of my injuries, since I had been dead at the time. I really didn't want to believe that a woman as lovely as Threnody could have done as much damage to me as she had. I wasn't nearly as sensible as a barbarian should have been.

One thing was muddily clear, though. I should stay away from Threnody, because she was either crazy or dangerous, possibly both. If Yin was going to marry her, that was his problem, not mine. He was a Magician; maybe he could handle her. I couldn't see why he would even want to marry a woman like that. Um, no; I could see. To gain King Gromden's sanction for the succession, and--The dirt in my mind smudged a picture for me of what she might look like without clothes and of what a man might do--well, never mind. I would just go about my business, fetch the object, bring it to Castle Roogna, and then get out of this region before the ship hit the fanny, so to speak. (I think that saying derives from the time someone accidentally sailed his ship into the posterior of a snoozing giant sea monster. That was not a smart thing to do.)

They make it to the top by noon. Jordan goes to get food, and trips over the black stone spell. His foot starts turning to stone. He kicks the spell away, to keep it from catching anyone else. (Except maybe the goblin and harpy.) Then he grabs for a counterspell as his other foot starts turning to stone. The dirt in his brain seems to make him think the stone-to-flesh spell hasn't already been used, and his rushing keeps him from thinking. He pulls out the white doll, and invokes it. Suddenly, he has the compass effect pointing him at the object. Of course, he's still turning to stone. He eventually dies of it. cPook realizes he may recover, however, and keeps a guard on him.

quote:

Creatures did appear. One was a small feline on the prowl for prey, but Pook stomped a forefoot and it fled, for it was a scaredy cat. A swarm of frisbees flew over, but they were only interested in flowers. They were shaped like little disks and they sort of glided down to a flower, then spun away to the next. A long, dark shape flapped in, its wings leathery, its body like a thin club; it was a baseball bat looking for a baseball. There was none here, as the bases generally held their balls in the evenings, so it flapped on past. Some June-bugs buzzed me; no, they were je-june bugs, comparatively dull and uninteresting. A bird flitted about the tree under which I lay, a brown thrasher, but there was nothing brown here to thrash, so it dropped a dropping on my nose, taking me for a statue, and flew off. Now I understood why sculptures objected to birds!

(Pun Count: 95) Eventually, Jordan returns to being flesh, thanks to his talent. At dawn, he can sit up, though his limbs remain stone. His talent is quite strained, and was unable to finish the job. Jordan figures it'll take a few hours or maybe days.

quote:

Well, I couldn't blame it. In a few hours or days, I was sure my magic would recover its strength and polish off the remaining stone; meanwhile, I would have to function on an as-was basis. In retrospect I conclude that my talent, having expended its last gasp getting me mostly restored, lost track of the job and assumed that I was supposed to be partly stone, for it did not rush to complete the job when it could have. Just as a man coming into a strange house does not realize if a chair is out of place, my reviving talent did not realize that the stone foot and hand were wrong. But this is only conjecture, long after the fact; I don't really understand magic.

Jordan doesh is best to walk, stand and move while partially stone, eating some fruit and heaidng after the arrow in his mind. They approach Threnody's cabin, and realize the object is there.

quote:

I sighed. I would just have to go and get it. I knew Threnody would not be pleased; after all, she had already killed me twice to prevent me from getting the object. Now I would have to take it from under her nose. But I'd have to do it quickly and get away from there before she found some other way to kill me. I couldn't blame her for not wanting to have someone bring her back to Castle Roogna, but I did object to being killed, even if it wasn't too serious a matter.

We went to the house, and I dismounted and knocked on the door. I heard music inside, rather pretty; she was playing the stringed instrument I had seen before. When I knocked, the music halted, and in a moment Threnody opened the door. She stood aghast as she recognized me; her mouth fell open and her fair skin paled.

"Got something to pick up," I said gruffly. I would have been more curt with her, but she was so pretty I didn't feel as angry as I should have. This is one sort of foolishness that barbarians are prone to; they tend to believe, despite significant evidence to the contrary, that women are as beautiful inside as they are outside. I knew better; still, the way she had treated me seemed less objectionable than it might have. "I'll just take it and be gone in a moment; please stand clear."

She stepped out of my way, her eyes round and staring, and I brushed by her and rechecked the arrow.

It pointed back toward Threnody. "Okay, you have it," I said. "I guess you knew it all the time, but didn't tell me. Hand it over."

"You're dead!" she gasped.

"Not any more; I heal fast," I said gruffly. "Now give it to me."

"I--don't have anything." She still acted as if she had seen a ghost; maybe she thought the ghost was me.

"Look, woman--you killed me, so I don't think I owe you anything. Give me that object, or I'll take it from you."

"I tell you I don't have it," she said, losing some of her pallor. "I don't even know what it is."

I had had enough. There are limits to what a barbarian will tolerate from even the prettiest of women, and perhaps some stone remained in my heart. I grabbed her and proceeded to search her, patting her body all over.

Threnody did not resist. I didn't find any object on her, but the arrow still pointed to her. "Maybe it's something you're wearing," I said. "Take off your clothing."

"I'll do nothing of the kind!" she exclaimed, recovering her indignity as she got accustomed to the idea of my being alive.

"Then I'll do it for you," I said and began unbuttoning her dress.

"You barbarian!" she cried.

"That's right," I agreed, pleased.

She saw I wasn't bluffing. "Oh, all right, I'll undress," she said. "I did undress you before, after all." She undid the rest of her brown dress and stepped out of it. She wore nothing underneath it. She took off her slippers, too, and stood completely bare. I picked up her clothing and set it in a pile on the bed, then stood between her and it. The arrow pointed directly at her.

I looked closely at her. There was a lot to look at, but there simply wasn't any object there. "Maybe you ate it," I said. "So it's inside you."

"Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "I don't want you cutting me open to verify it isn't there!"

I scratched my head. "I just can't figure it, unless--"

"Unless I am the object you seek," she concluded. That, of course, was it. Suddenly it made sense. Why fetch an object to win the throne, then go after an unwilling woman to marry? How much simpler to fetch the woman herself!

And if she didn't want to come--might, in fact, even kill the one who tried to bring her--well, get an ignorant barbarian to do the job for you.

I had had a low regard for Magician Yang. Now, abruptly. Magician Yin didn't seem phenomenally good to me, either.

Well, I was stuck for it, since I had agreed to undertake this mission. Maybe this was what King Gromden had been trying to warn me about. He hadn't known--because of the second curse--that Threnody's return to Castle Roogna would cause it to fall; he just wanted his daughter back, and married to his successor, so that his bloodline would remain in power. But he had known she didn't want to return and would resist any effort to bring her there with all the forces at her command.

I could see her point, even though I did not approve of her methods. If I knew that my return to Fen Village would cause it to be destroyed, I would resist that return as strongly as I could. Now I felt guilty about what I had to do--yet I did have to do it. It was not my place to decide on the larger rights and wrongs of the situation; I just had to complete the job I had agreed to do.

What a pile of mud this assignment was turning out to be!

Pun Count: 95 by the end of Chapter 9.

# ? Aug 26, 2013 04:56

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