Knot Gneiss (31 page)

It flung out a net and snared her. In no more than a moment and a quarter she was hauled into the air, bagged by the net. The dragon was slavering stringily.

“Yew dew knot want to dew this,” she warned it.

The dragon paid no never mind. It opened its ropey maw and bit her on the right foot.

And dropped her, groaning. For of course her foot was not maidenly flesh, but hard hollowed wood.

“I tried to warn yew,” she reminded it as she got to her feet and removed the net. “Woodwives are knot edible. Now why dew yew knot go away and leave this path clear so I can use it?”

For answer, the beast pounced on her, trying to bite off her head. It succeeded only in further damaging itself. In two instants it was rolling on the ground, moaning with several awful toothaches.

“Please go now,” she told it. “I dew knot want to hurt yew anymore.”

But the dragon roused itself and attacked her again. Apparently it was too dull to realize what it was up against. A fire-breather could have burned her up, but string could not hurt her.

Still, she realized that they would not be able to roll the wagon through this pass as long as the dragon remained. Its string could foul the wheels, and it could bite other members of their party. The thing was too stupid to know when to quit, and that gave it the victory. It was annoying as spit, but she was not going to win her prize.

With that realization, she felt herself sinking. It wasn’t just emotional; she was physically descending into the forest floor. She fell down and down, the earth sliding by, until she was back in the invisible maze. Then she was out of it, landing un-neatly at the entry gate.

“Let me help you,” Hilarion said, helping her to her feet.

“Yew are supposed to bee in the maize,” she protested.

“I yielded the right of way to Princess Ida. It was the princely thing to do.”

“That’s why yew were sliding,” she said, realizing. “Yew were beeing washed out.”

“Yes. I am sorry to see you suffering the same fate.”

“It was knot fated to bee,” she agreed. “Ida—I am surprised she agreed to take yewr path.”

“She didn’t. She wanted to yield to me. But I worked the rotary door to favor her, and she was through before she realized. I regret playing such a trick on her. I hope she finds her king.”

“Yew are really a pretty decent person.”

“I do what I feel is right,” he said. “As do you. She’s an elder princess with diminishing prospects, while I could marry some other young woman than my betrothee if I chose to. Her need is greater.”

That seemed to cover it. “Let us see how she is dewing,” Wenda said, lifting up the mirror.

Not well, as it turned out. The storm was so thick that it was difficult to see immediately ahead, let alone across to the castle. Ida tried to avoid the holes, but their slopes had become larger, so that there was hardly room to step between them, and erratic gusts were pushing her that way and this. Now Wenda understood why Ida feared the storm: it made her route become too treacherous to navigate.

Then she lost her footing and fell, sliding into one of the holes. Suddenly she was zooming helplessly down and out of the maze.

Hilarion and Wenda were there to assist her as she emerged at the gate. She was soaked and obviously miserable, but she put on a smile. “Hilarion, is your father a widower?”

Startled, Hilarion considered. “Not that I know of, though it may have been some time since I last saw him.”

“Dew yew have an uncle?” Wenda asked.

“I do. But I don’t understand your interest.”

“It’s that Ida’s ideal man might bee him,” Wenda explained. “In which case she will know where to look next.”

“I suppose that is possible,” he agreed. “Princess Ida, you will be welcome to join me when I return to my home isle for a visit after this mission is complete. I’m sure my uncle would consider you more than worthy.”

“Thank you. I regret that you gave up your chance for nothing.”

“I must act in a princely way,” Hilarion said seriously. “Else I risk
becoming
nothing.”

“I appreciate the point.”

“I am sure you do, being a princess in your own right.”

She shrugged. “We are all constrained to be what we must be.”

“We are indeed,” he agreed. “Though on rare occasion there might be a tinge of regret.”

“Exactly.”

Wenda, a princess by marriage, found it interesting to see how those to the manner born behaved. They understood nuances of behavior that she was still struggling to learn.

But there were things to do. Wenda activated the mirror. “Jumper.”

The big spider was still examining bundles of numerals. But Wenda saw that the ogre, too stupid to know better, was still struggling with ham-minded determination. He had succeeded in biting through some of the silk bindings and had worked a hamhand free. Then he started swinging. What was he doing?

Now Wenda saw a dangling cord. It had a red ball on the end. The ogre swung toward it, away from it, and toward it again, gaining momentum. This was surely mischief.

“Jumper!” Wenda cried. “The ogre’s knot tied anymore!” But he couldn’t hear her.

The ogre caught the cord and yanked on it. Suddenly the entire platform collapsed, dumping Jumper into a nether chute. In barely three moments he landed at the gate in a tangle of debris.

“I’m so sorry,” Wenda said, helping him up. “I tried to warn yew.”

“I should not have been so distracted by the bundles,” Jumper said. “I thought I was so close to finding the right numeral.”

“You surely were,” Hilarion said. “But the fun house does not make it easy.”

Jumper looked around with two or three eyes. “The three of you washed out?”

“We did,” Wenda agreed.

“Literally,” Ida said. She remained thoroughly wet, her hair in a mess and mud on her gown.

“But Meryl and Angela are still in it?”

“They are,” Ida agreed.

“Then all is not yet lost.”

“Knot yet,” Wenda agreed. “Dew yew have another dress?” she asked Ida.

“As a matter of fact, I do. I will try to clean up and change now.”

“I will gaze elsewhere,” Hilarion said. And he did, providing Ida some privacy. So did Jumper.

Wenda lifted the mirror. “Angela.”

Angela had found a promising figurine. It was of an impossibly fat nature goddess. She touched it, and it became a volume titled
Women of Substance
.

“I think she’s got it,” Hilarion said.

Angela paged through the tome. There were pictures of assorted human women, some of them queens of ample girth. Then she came to a picture that made her pause.

“That’s Angela!” Ida said.

So it was. Somehow Angela herself had gotten into the book. Did this mean she had won her prize?

Angela touched the picture. Suddenly the whole book came up around her hand and arm, as if consuming her. Then it disappeared into her. And her body filled out.

“She got the substance of the book,” Jumper said. “She won!”

“She won,” Ida said. She was now in an alternate dress, with very little mud left on her. She had cleaned and changed efficiently, as well as was feasible in this awkward circumstance. “Now she is whole.”

“It seems we were wrong to doubt the constancy of Bems,” Hilarion said. “I am glad to see it.”

“As am I,” Ida agreed. “I did not like suspecting ill of any creature. It is unprincessly.”

“You were never that,” Hilarion said.

Now Angela was sliding down the exit chute. Unlike the others, she was happy. Soon she appeared at the gate.

“I got it!” she exclaimed. “Look! Feel! I am thoroughly solid.”

Jumper and Hilarion were appropriately diffident, though they might have liked to oblige her, but Wenda and Ida felt Angela’s arms and legs. They were fully fleshed, not spongy. Angela was indeed now a woman of substance.

One remained. “Meryl,” Wenda said, holding the mirror.

Meryl was still flying lithely through the watery caverns. Tendrils were reaching for her from crevices, but she was avoiding them. She seemed to know where she was going, and was determined to get there soon.

She came to a new cave, and there above her was the flatness of the surface of the lake. This cave was only half full of water. Within it was an island formed from a nether projection of rock, and on that isle was a figure.

In fact it was a winged merman. The one who had shown in the picture.

Meryl must have called, because the merman turned and saw her. Then he slid into the water and joined her. They held an animated dialogue.

“I was just flying along, minding my own business,” Hilarion said, mimicking the presumed merman’s voice. “When suddenly I was caught here in this cave with no idea of the way out.”

“Fortunately I know the way out,” Ida said, mimicking Meryl’s voice. “I have an excellent memory for travel details. I will show you.”

“I would be so grateful,” the merman said.

“I am just glad to be of help,” the mermaid said.

Then the two embraced, there in the water, and kissed.

Wenda and Jumper looked at Hilarion and Ida. “Will yew dew that too?” Wenda asked.

But the two, abruptly embarrassed, did not.

Meryl was as good as her presumed word. She led the way back through the underwater caves, and the merman followed. He could have escaped alone, had he had any idea of the route, but it was such a labyrinth that he must have feared getting lost, and caught by hungry sea monsters.

“They will surely be here soon,” Jumper said. “So our party has won two of six prizes. That seems worthwhile.”

“Oh, yes,” Angela said, admiring her own full flesh.

“Which means it is time to consider where we should go from here,” Wenda said. “We can knot expect any further help from the Bems; they have fulfilled their end of the deal.”

“And it seems they know it,” Hilarion said, glancing toward the boat. The others looked.

The boat was gone. The Knot sat alone on the wagon.

“I suspect we will not be able to use the Bem highway without the boat,” Jumper said. He went to the highway access and poked it. His leg passed through it. It had become illusion, as far as they were concerned.

They explored the edges of the park. They faded into nothingness. There was no other exit path.

“I fear we shall have to take an uncomfortable route,” Hilarion said.

“The humidor,” Ida agreed, similarly distressed.

“At least we can camp here overnight and consider,” Angela said.

Two figures arrived at the gate. “I found him!” Meryl exclaimed jubilantly. “Merwyn Merman! Isn’t he wonderful!”

There was a flurry of individual introductions. Merwyn seemed happy to have been rescued by such a charming creature of his species. His expression indicated that Meryl was everything he had ever dreamed of, but feared didn’t exist.

“Will you two fly happily into the sunset?” Jumper asked.

“No way!” Meryl said. “I want to stay with the party until the Knot is delivered, and have conjugal visits. I have been jealous of those all along.”

The others laughed. Now all but Hilarion and Ida could have hot visits. Wenda was sorry for the two left out, yet happy for Angela’s substance and Meryl’s companion.

They broke out their stored supplies and ate, for the day was now late. And just at dusk their companions appeared.

“Too bad the rest of you did not win your prizes,” Eris remarked. “And I’m not just saying that because of yours, you hopeless romantic,” she said, kissing Jumper on the carapace. “But you folk have one remaining significant adventure to get through before you can retire.”

Then Wenda was in a separate little tent with Charming. He still did not seem to notice her reverted condition, masked as it was by her clothing, and she was not about to call it to his attention. She liked his enthusiasm. In seven minutes he was asleep, and then gone.

Wenda was interested to see that Merwyn Merman was asleep. Evidently that relationship had progressed rapidly.

In the morning they consulted. “You won’t want to be along on this,” Meryl told Merwyn. “Those puns are atrocious.”

“But how will I ever find you again, if you reappear randomly in Xanth?” he asked.

He had a point. “Then come along,” Wenda said. “Just bee prepared.”

Ida brought out the humidor.

13

M
AY
I

They landed in a deep blue valley near yellow jungle-overgrown ruins. Planet Comic had seemed uninhabited, and maybe it was, but there had been some sort of civilization here once.

Hilarion cupped his ear with his hand. “Is that baying I hear?”

Meryl and Merwyn sailed up into the sky. “We’ll see,” Meryl called back. She remained flush with happiness about finding her man. Wenda was glad for her, and for Angela, and that helped ease her discomfort about her own hollowed condition. She reminded herself that she was better off this way than dead. But for Eris …

“Baying,” Ida said uneasily. “Does that mean wolves?”

“Or dogs,” Hilarion said. “The dogs of war.”

“I don’t know whether to hope that’s a pun,” Angela said.

“This is a world of puns,” Jumper reminded her. “But they are mostly confined to the pun Strips.”

“But some dew escape,” Wenda said, remembering their awkward meal with pun food.

The winged merfolk glided down. “Definitely dogs,” Meryl called. “They look absolutely vicious. We had better take precautions.”

Wenda swung into action. “Yew two—survey these ruins, quick. Find a section that can bee sealed off rapidly. Jumper—we will need yewr power to roll some stones into place. Ida—yew surely remember some good castle designs. Figure out one for what we have here, defensible against animals. Angela—forage for some food, as we may bee cooped up for a while. Hilarion—keep listening. Tell us when they are getting close.”

They got busy. The merfolk soon located an ancient temple whose roof had collapsed, but whose high green stone walls were still standing and solid. Ida considered it. “This will make a defensible dungeon,” she said. “Except for this one broken-down section of wall.”

“The Knot can block that,” Wenda said, hauling on the wagon.