Cube Route (30 page)

    “I will direct the dance,” Karia said. “Drek will watch the thread and seek to follow it. The moment he makes it, we will follow, for the way will be open. The rest of you must focus on the dance, for if it is to be effective, it must be accurate. Keep dancing, whatever happens, until I say it has ended.”

    The centaur did seem to know what she was doing. Cube almost found a modicum of confidence. Half a modicum, anyway.

    “Couples form a square, facing each other,” Karia said, and made spot adjustments so that they got it right. Cube and Melody faced Metria and Harmony, with the other couples forming the sides of the square.

    “Now there are certain basic actions, which we will rehearse first,” the centaur continued. “When the dance starts, you will do them when I call them out. The important thing is that they be done together; a square dance is a pattern, most esthetic when performed precisely. You need have no concern for what is past or what is coming; it is ongoing. Simply listen to my calls and it will go well. Now the first action is 'swing your partner.'” She directed them in that, and soon Cube was swinging Melody competently. Other actions were do-si-do, promenade, and balancing. When they had these straight, Karia asked for music. The Princesses got together and generated loud square dance music from a spot in the air above the square. Now they were ready to dance.

    “Set in order,” Karia said. “Balance to your corner.” Cube turned and did the leg swinging motion facing her corner, who was Rhythm. As they finished, she faced the girl's partner Ryver briefly. He was dancing competently, his partner having enchanted his clumsy feet as directed. Cube smiled at him, beginning to enjoy this. To her surprise, he smiled back. Then she really enjoyed it.

    “Swing your partner.” Cube turned back to swing Melody.

    “Gee this is fun,” the girl said.

    “Promenade.” Cube and Melody linked arms the prescribed way and stepped around in a circle, in time with the others. She could see that it did form a pattern, an artistic whole. There was pleasure in that too.

    Meanwhile she saw that Drek was elongating along the nearby thread, getting close to it, facing its entry into the wall. If, somehow, this dance made it possible to enter the realm of that wall, he would be ready.

    The dance intensified. Not only was Cube getting into it, she saw that the others were too. There was something about the music, the beat, the pattern, and the participation that was exhilarating. She had never been a great dancer, but she could follow directions, and the basic forms were easy. She saw that this was true for Ryver, who did not need fancy footwork, and Cory, who did not need to be short, and of course the girls. Even Metria in her jolly coachman guise was smiling. There was pleasure in unity, and doing things together, making the patterns. They were being melded into an artistic whole. Too bad they didn't have an audience!

    Something happened. At first Cube thought it was merely her joy of the dance; she was feeling giddy as she moved through the forms. For one thing, she even got to do-si-do with Ryver on occasion, though both had male parts; not everything was male-female. The dance seemed to be transcending itself, becoming something larger, more significant. But soon she realized that it was something beyond it. The very air seemed to be coming alive.

    Drek was disappearing into the wall.

    “Promenade!” Karia cried. “Along the thread!”

    They followed the thread--right through the wall and into the adjacent cube. Along a path, until they came to a broader section. They formed the square again, bowed to their partners, and ended it.

    There was a burst of applause. Startled, Cube looked. People were all around them. The folk of this realm had come alive! The bad spell had been broken, and the tesseract had been restored. All through the magic of the dance.

    They broke it up, breathlessly congratulating each other. Suddenly Cube was being hugged--and realized with amazement that it was by Ryver. “We did it!” he said. “We danced and won.”

    They had indeed. But for the moment all Cube could think of was being held by Ryver. What absolute joy!

Amber Dawn

    Of course the good folk of Tesseract World insisted on feting them all with a great party, and they insisted on learning how this marvelous magic square dance was performed. It turned out that they had been aware of their predicament, but unable to do anything about it. The collapse of their four-dimensional reality into three dimensions had happened in less than an instant, rendering them helplessly timeless. Until they were restored by the dance troupe, and they were duly grateful.

    First the group repeated the dance they had done, which was easy, because Karia remembered the calls. Then they became instructors, each taking a Tesseract partner to guide through it, forming two squares. The natives were good at multiplying squares; it was their nature. Cube got to dance as a woman, with a handsome male partner; she loved that. Even Drek Dragon got to dance with a slinky lady dragon, in their fashion, and she loved his perfume.

    At last they were able to proceed. The others slid into the pouch, and Cube followed the thread to Princess Ida, whose moon looked like a stylized bug. It seemed that the tour of the moons was not over, because the thread led to it.

    “This is Fractal,” Ida said. “Much of it is invisible from here, but when you go to it you will find that it is surrounded by one or two myriads of threadlike patterns, leading to ever-smaller similar worlds. My next self resides on one of those worlds. I'm sure she will help you.”

    “Is there no limit to these moons?” Cube asked. “Is every one different?”

    “The answer seems to be no and yes. We have discovered no limit, and no two worlds similar in shape. Perhaps it is your destiny to reach the end of the line, as it were, and fathom the last of the chain.”

    “I don't know,” Cube said doubtfully.

    “Neither do I,” Ida agreed.

    Cube thanked her, and rode the dogsled to Fractal World. It was as described, replete with many sprouting threads, twisting into intricate diminishing patterns. Her own thread followed the fractal thread from the nose-point and came to a tiny bug-world hidden there. But of course it seemed full world size when she got there. The Ida there was hospitable, and helped her on her way to the next moon.

    And the next, and the next. It became a blur, and Cube regretted that she could not linger to admire the truly different worlds she saw in passing. But she had somewhere to go, and she wanted to get there.

    Then she came to Zombie World. It looked like a moldy apple, and she hoped she would not remain there long. But as fate would have it, this was the one she had to explore.

    The thread did not lead her to a zombie Princess Ida, but past rotten trees and decaying people to a crumbling castle surrounded by a stinking moat. “Oh, no!” Cube breathed. “Castle Zombie.”

    So it was. Cube knew that most of the zombies had retired to their own world, along with the original Zombie Master, and that there was now a replacement couple in Xanth proper. That was all she knew; she had not been curious about the affairs of zombies, preferring only that they be elsewhere. Now it seemed she would be learning more, though not by choice.

    The dogsled stopped at the moat. The drawbridge was down, but looked too decrepit to sustain the weight of even one loaded sled. Yet the thread continued on into the sagging castle.

    Cube sighed. “You stay here,” she told the dogsled. “Maybe my weight won't be too much for it.”

    The dogsled looked relieved. She wondered how there could be danger, here on the tiniest part of the tiniest world, but it did seem like full size, and she felt as solid as she had on Xanth. Magic didn't have to make sense except on its own terms.

    Now what about the pacifier? This time she put it into the pouch. That should stop it from doing anything weird while she was dealing with the Zombie Master.

    She put a tentative foot on the derelict bridge. The wood looked rotten, but was actually firm under a squishy surface. She let her weight come down on it, and it held. She took another step, and then walked on out over the moat. It seemed that the rot was mostly for show. If the rest of the castle was that way, it was safe.

    Just when she was halfway across, a bilious dripping head rose out of the green soup that was the moat. The moat monster! It opened its festering mouth. It was going to eat her!

    Almost without thinking, she put her hand to the pouch. “Drek!” she said.

    The dragon emerged so quickly he missed the bridge and dropped down into the moat with a great gooey splash. He wasn't pleased; an absolutely putrid stench wafted up.

    The moat monster sniffed, sneezed, and recoiled. It seemed that even a zombie had limits.

    Cube held her breath and hurried on across. “I'm okay, Drek!” she called. “Come on back.”

    The dragon shook his head. She knew why: he didn't want to stink up the pouch.

    “Very well; I'll return for you when I'm done in the castle. See if you can find a place to clean up.”

    Drek nodded. She turned to face the castle, musing how the folk in the pouch always emerged in proper scale for the world they were in. Maybe her soul management, as she shucked off most of it each time she went to a smaller world, applied to the pouch and its contents, so that the process was automatic. She was just glad that her Companions were still with her, when at one point she had feared they weren't. Their souls had after all come along in the soul pouch. Again, magic was wonderful.

    She knocked on the great sagging door, hoping a zombie wouldn't answer. She was in luck: a lovely elderly woman was there. Even old women looked better than Cube did, of course. “Yes?”

    “I'm Cube, from Xanth proper. I--I'm here on a Quest, and it led me here.”

    “Why come in, dear,” the woman said. “I am Millie the Ghost.”

    “A ghost!”

    Millie laughed. “So-called because I was a ghost for eight hundred years. I was a restored-to-living woman for more than fifty years before retiring here to Zombie World with my husband, the Zombie Master. I'm so very glad to see you; you're just in time.”

    “In time?” Cube asked blankly.

    “I will fetch her. Meanwhile make yourself comfortable.” Millie hurried off.

    Fetch who? Cube wasn't sure there wasn't a misunderstanding of some sort. But she saw the thread moving on down the castle hall, so she made herself comfortable by following it. It led to a stairway, which was in good order, as was the hall; there was no trace of zombie rot here.

    At the top of the stair was a raised alcove, and in it was a mass of fur or wild hair. The thread stopped at the fur.

    Cube picked it up. It seemed to be a cap, or perhaps a wig. She set it on her head, and felt a strange surge of emotion. She had been entirely too nice; it was past time to do something for herself, and to hell with the consequences.

    Alarmed by the unaccustomed thought, she swept the wig off her head. It landed back in the alcove, askew. “What is that thing?” she demanded, flustered.

    “That is the Hell Toupee,” a man's voice answered. “It makes its wearer evil.”

    That explained it. Cube turned to face the man, who had come along a side hall. He looked cadaverously old, but otherwise healthy. “Hello. I'm, uh, Cube.”

    “And I am the Zombie Master. My wife said you were here. She is fetching the baby.”

    “The baby!”

    “Isn't that why you are here?”

    “I know nothing about any baby. I'm on a--a private Quest, which just led me to--to the Hell Toupee.”

    “I see. But I am not at all sure why you would wish to have that artifact. Even the zombies won't touch it. We have left it alone, pending some decision on its disposition.”

    “I don't know why either, but it seems I'm supposed to take it. Maybe I don't have to wear it.”

    “Perhaps it is your destiny to deliver it where it belongs.”

    “Maybe that's it.” She put the toupee into the pouch.

    “Cube!” Millie called from downstairs. “Where are you?”

    “That's my wife,” the Zombie Master said. “We must discuss this matter of the baby.”

    “I think so,” Cube agreed.

    They walked down the steps to the lower hall. There was Millie, holding a swaddled baby.

    “There seems to have been another misunderstanding, dear,” the Zombie Master said. “This young woman is not here for the baby.”

    “Oh,” Millie said faintly. “Then what are we to do with her?” She held up the baby.

    “You see, the stork got confused,” the Zombie Master explained. “It delivered the baby to the wrong Castle Zombie. This one was obviously intended for Breanna of the Black Wave, and Justin Tree. But by the time we realized the error, the stork was gone; it did not seem to like the environment.”

    Cube looked at the baby. She was the color of amber, with a full head of hair that resembled waves of grain. She was the loveliest baby Cube had ever seen.

    “She has to be delivered to the right castle,” Millie said. “I assumed--we don't get many visitors from Xanth--that you were here to do that.”

    Now Cube saw that the thread went to the baby. “I--maybe that's the case. I--I didn't know what I was here for. I just never thought of a baby.” And it seemed that the pacifier was still having some serendipitous effect.

    “That must be it,” Millie said, relieved. “We are really too old for that now, and this is not the ideal world for new life.” She handed the baby to Cube. “She has a nice talent.” She went on to describe it.

    “But I don't know anything about caring for a baby,” Cube protested belatedly. “It was a long way, coming here, and will be a long way back. I don't have the right kind of food or clothing or anything.”

    “That should be no problem,” Millie said. “You can return to Xanth must faster than you came, simply by expanding back to normal size; your soul remnants will find you as you do.”

    “But I'll be in Castle Roogna! I'll have to travel to Castle Zombie. That will take at least a day.”

    “You can put the baby into that magic pouch,” the Zombie Master said. “No time will pass for her, and she won't need to be fed or clothed or changed.” It seemed he had seen that kind of item before.

    “So I can,” Cube said. “What's her name? I need that to bring her out.”

    “We don't know,” Millie said.

    “She has a point,” the Zombie Master said. “We shall have to give the baby a name, so she isn't lost in the pouch.”

    “She has such lovely amber skin,” Millie said.

    “And she was delivered at dawn,” the Zombie Master said.

    “Then let's call her Amber Dawn,” Cube said. She didn't mention her confusion about how there could be dawn here on a world that derived from an endless chain of worlds orbiting Princess Ida's head in Castle Roogna on Xanth, so saw no sunlight.

    They nodded. “It's a nice name,” Millie said.

    Cube spoke to the baby. “We hereby name you Amber Dawn,” she said. “Do you understand?”

    There was no response. “She's too young to understand,” the Zombie Master said.

    “Besides, she's asleep,” Millie said.

    So she was. “I will bring you out soon, Amber Dawn,” Cube said. Then she slid the baby into the pouch.

    “Oh, my, I just remembered,” Millie said. “Now that the baby has been named, she has to rejoin her body within a day, or her soul will perish. Normally the storks keep their schedule, and soul and body don't get separated.”

    “Separated?” Cube asked.

    “This is Amber Dawn's soul, of course. Her body remains in Xanth proper.”

    “Of course,” Cube said faintly. So she had a deadline, regardless of how time seemed to the baby in the pouch.

    “So that means dawn at Castle Zombie,” Millie said.

    Cube realized that she had better get moving. “Now I'll just--you say I can expand my way back?”

    “Aren't you forgetting something?” the Zombie Master inquired gravely.

    “Forgetting?” Cube repeated blankly. Then she remembered. “Drek! Drek Dragon! I can't leave him here.”

    “Of course you can't,” Millie agreed.

    Cube bid them both farewell and went outside. “Drek!” she called. “Where are you?”

    There was a honk. Cube looked across the moat to a nearby pond that looked reasonably clean. Drek had found it and washed himself. He came sliding to meet her as she crossed the drawbridge. He no longer smelled of moat or stench. Cube hugged his neck, relieved that she hadn't left him behind. Soon he was back in the pouch.

    Now what about the dogsled? “Can you find your own way back if I leave you now?” she asked it.

    The dogsled wagged its tail. She hadn't known it had a tail. “Okay, go home now, with my thanks.”

    The dogsled puffed into smoke and disappeared. Actually it was returning the same way as she was about to, just not as far. It would be hard to get lost, since everything was circling Ida's head. But would that have worked for Drek, who had come here in the pouch?

    Cube checked for the thread. It led ahead, but not the usual way. It was growing larger, thicker, and higher. In fact it was a huge cone, its apex just before her. It was expanding into infinity. Which was exactly what she should do.

    “On my way,” she said, and concentrated on expansion. Immediately she felt herself growing larger, puffing out, becoming as big as the castle, and as big as the world. As big as the universe! She saw Ida's head, as Zombie World orbited it, but she was still growing, expanding to the next stage, to the next Ida, and the next and the next, too rapidly for her to count.

    Suddenly she was lying on a bed in a small chamber. What had happened? Why had the expansion been interrupted?

    Then she saw Princess Ida, with the little globe of Ptero orbiting her head. She was back to Xanth proper! “I'm back,” she said, half in wonder.

    “That's nice,” Ida said. “Did you accomplish your mission?”

    “Some of it, I think.” She sat up, feeling rather massive in her original body. “I have a baby to deliver to Castle Zombie.”