Roc And A Hard Place (21 page)

That lasted until 378, when Rune died fighting the Seventh Wave.  The people, desperate for leadership that could save them, persuaded the zombie Jonathan to assume the throne.

“The Zombie Master!” Kim cried.  “He was King of Xanth?”

Metria popped out of her dream.  She was back in contemporary Xanth.  “But demons don't dream,” she protested.

“Yes you do, when you have a soul,” Jenny said.  “You were sharing my dream just now; I saw you there, watching the parade of Kings with me.  We all were there.”

“That's right—I can dream now,” Metria said.  “Mentia dreamed with Gary Gargoyle last year.  That was really ancient history.”

“Sorry I jogged us all out of it,” Kim said.  “Anyone who isn't paying attention can enter one of Jenny's dreams, when she's humming.  That's her talent.  But it's easy to startle folk out of it.  I should have kept my big mouth shut, as usual.

But this business of the Zombie Master being King of Xanth—how come he never mentioned that?”

“Well, zombies don't have very good memories,” Arnolde said.  “Because their heads are filled with—”

“Never mind!” Kim said.  “I get the picture.  But how could a zombie govern?”

“I remember that,” Metria said.  “That was one King I didn't try to seduce!  He couldn't be killed, so anyone who attacked him just got frustrated, until Jonathan caught up to him and threatened to turn him into a zombie too.”

“But he couldn't turn living folk into zombies,” Kim said.

“They didn't always know that.  And of course, he could have arranged to have them killed first.  So they didn't give him any lip, or any other parts of their bodies.  They did exactly what he told them to do, so that he would stay away from them.  And he did, as long as they behaved.  He was actually a very gentle man.  That's why his reign lasted a whole century.  He finally got fed up with the rotten job and abdicated.  He was more interested in chasing after Millie the Ghost anyway.”

Kim shook her head.  “You were right:  there are wrinkles to Xanth history I never suspected.  The Zombie Master is a nice guy, now that he's alive.”

“He always was.  It was just that other folk couldn't stand his talent.  So he was somewhat isolated, until Millie loved him.”

Night was threatening by now, so Kim erased a nice place on the ground, making a pit, then smeared a top across it, so that they had a safe underground chamber to sleep in.  Sammy located a pillow bush and blanket tree, and they made comfortable beds.

“You know, a single bed would do for the two of us,” Dug suggested hopefully.

“Sorry—I'm already sharing mine with Bubbles,” Kim informed him.  Dug didn't argue.  They had evidently discussed this before.

Metria didn't need to sleep, but she did settle down to dream again, as Jenny started humming.  She dreamed of Magician Vortex becoming King in 478 after the Zombie King abdicated.  Vortex's talent was Summoning Demons.  How well she remembered!  He had summoned her once, but not for anything interesting; he was merely curious about her impediment of speech, as he put it.  She tried to distract him by seducing him, but he had a policy against being seduced by demonesses.  That was when she learned that sometimes it was best to conceal her nature, and that caution was to stand her in good stead two centuries later with King Gromden.  But it took her a good five minutes of seductive effort before she realized that it wasn't working with Vortex.  She was about to do her ultimate, by showing him her panties, when—

“Wow!” Dug exclaimed.  “Now, that's what I call a hot scene!”

“Get out of this dream!” Kim snapped at him, and he vanished, but the interested look remained on his face.

So it was the group dream again.  That was all right; Metria found that she rather liked the company.  Jenny Elf’s talent was a lot of fun.

“Thank you,” Jenny said.

The dream continued through the next name on the list, King Neytron, whose talent was Bringing Paintings to Life, he didn't need any sexy demonesses either, because all he had to do was paint the type of woman he desired, and she would be his.  He also painted elaborate furnishings for Castle Roogna, and, when times became lean, supplies of food for the people.  It occurred to Metria that Kim's talent was-the reverse of this.  Then there was King Nero, who animated golems, and they were very good for getting work done.

They planted a much larger orchard, so that the local folk would never again have to be concerned about their food supply.

Then came Gromden, in 623.  She concluded her dream with him, though there were a number of other Kings of Xanth to follow him.  Including a second female King, Elona, in 797, whose talent was Longevity for herself and any others she chose.  She governed for a long time.  Today, Metria thought, folk believed that there had never been female Kings of Xanth, historically, but that was ignorance.  And the Ghost King Warren, who had also been lost to history.  But after that came King Ebnez, with his talent of Inanimate Adaptation, followed by Humfrey, the Storm King Aeolus, Trent, and Dor.  She would dream about them some other time.

“That was definitely not fit for Dug to see,” Kim said. “He already has too many big ideas.”

“You don't like them?” Jenny asked.

“Not when they're about other women.”

Jenny laughed.  The effort was too much for the dream, and it faded out, leaving Metria awake.

Oh, yes, she had toyed with history, in her fashion.  Now, with her soul, she regretted some of it.  But not much.

Then she snapped alert.  There was someone with her, and not one of the regular party.  “Who are you?” she demanded abruptly.

A horse figure reared back, startled.  A night mare!

“Not so fast, equine!” she said, puffing into smoke and surrounding it.  “How is it that you're trying to give a bad dream to a demoness?”

The figure tried to run away, but her smoke surrounded it, so that it couldn't get away.  So it projected a little dream figure of a man.  “I thought you were mortal,” the man said. “What are you doing with half a soul?”

“You're male?” she asked, astonished.

“I'm a night colt,” the dream man said.  “They wouldn't let me take out any dreams.  So I stole half a soul and went out on my own.  I sniffed out some impromptu dreaming here, so I came to see if I could get in on it.  I don't have much experience, you know.”

“That's obvious,” Metria said, realizing that it had been Jenny's powerful group dream that had attracted the colt's attention.  “You can't just go anywhere with dreams; you have to bring them from the gourd, to assigned people who deserve them.”

“But I told you, they won't let me have any of those.”

“Then maybe you had better just explore Xanth, and not mess with dreams at all.”

“No, I'm a dream creature; I have to associate with dreams.  Since I don't have a cargo of my own, messing with others is all I can do.”

Metria considered.  “Then maybe you can make something of it.  Why not enter ordinary dreams and make the folks in them do things they'd never do on their own?  That could be fun, correctly done.”

“I hadn't thought of that.  Thanks, Demoness!” he galloped off, and this time she let him go.

It was good to be back making some mischief, even in such a small way.

Then she thought of something else.  Jenny Elf's group dream had attracted a night colt.  What would the Night Stallion himself think of her dreaming ability?  The stallion could, of course, assume any shape he wished, being master of the dream realm.  He could become a handsome man—or an elf of any size.  Suppose he got interested in Jenny's talent, and then in Jenny herself?

Nah, she thought.  Jenny's future was surely in regular Xanth.  Or in her realm, of origin, the World of Two Moons.

In the morning, refreshed, they set out to locate Chena Centaur, the mystery token.  Kim passed the back of her hand across the surface of the nether chamber, and restored the ground the way it had been.  “No sense leaving a mess,” she explained.

“That is one powerful talent,” Ichabod remarked.  “Sorceress level, perhaps.”

“I don't know,” Kim said.  “I'm still learning how to use it.  I don't know its limits.”

“It would be wise to ascertain them.”

They moved on.  Soon they came to a river that looked too deep to wade across.  “Maybe I can erase a section,” Kim said.  “So we can walk across dry.  Then I can unerase it after we're across.”

Arnolde looked thoughtful.  “I wonder.”

Kim squatted by the riverbank, and passed her hand across

the surface of the water.  There was a ripple, but it didn't disappear.  “I don't understand,” Kim said.  “Why isn't it working?”

“Because the water fills in the gap as soon as you make it,” Arnolde replied.  “I thought that might be the case.  It would be remarkable were it otherwise.”

Kim nodded.  “I guess so.”

“Perhaps it is just as well that there is some reasonable limit on it,” Arnolde continued.  “It would be dangerous, otherwise.  I think I feel more comfortable this way.”

“Me, too,” Kim confessed.  But she seemed a bit disappointed, too.

“Now how do we get across this river?” Dug asked.  “It's too deep to wade, and I don't like the look of those shark fins in the center.”

“Loan sharks,” Kim agreed.  “They'll take an arm and a leg if you let them.  Let's not let them.”

“Maybe you could carve out another boat or raft,” Jenny Elf suggested.  “That worked well to get us to Xanth.”

“I suppose I could.  But it wouldn't be easy to navigate, because I can't get under to make a keel.  We could haul it across with ropes, if we could get the ropes anchored on the far side of the water.”

“And who'll swim across with ropes!” Dug said.

“I can do that,” Metria said.  “I can't float with heavy things, but I can with light things, and hemp feels light.”

“It can make men light-headed,” Ichabod agreed.

So they sent Sammy Cat to locate some hemp with suitable ropes, while Kim found a fallen log and made a dugout boat by erasing a hole in it.  There were some cracks in the wood, but she smoothed those over with finger-smears, making it watertight.  It wasn't Xanth's prettiest boat, but it seemed serviceable.  And, contrary to her expectation, she had been able to shape a crude keel, by having the menfolk roll it over so she could work on the bottom of the hull.

Small selective erasures could do a lot.

When the craft was ready, and they had the necessary rope, Metria floated across the river, carrying the end of the rope.  The sharks leaped up and snapped at her with their red, green, blue, and white teeth, and sometimes they did catch a piece of her, but she just dissolved that portion into dirty tasting smoke and they were left with no interest, though they continued to make efforts on principle.  She made sure to float low enough to tease them well.  Her soul was a hindrance when it came to mischief against nice folk, but loan sharks gave her no problem at all.

She tied the rope to a stout A-com tree and floated back, almost touching the water, but the sharks now knew they couldn't get a real piece of her and didn't try.  “Ready,” she said, tying the other end to a similarly stout B-com tree.  She yanked on it, to be sure it was tight; that shook the trees, and a few ripe cobs fell, but the rope held.

They hauled the boat to the water, and Arnolde stepped carefully in and lay down.  Sammy and Bubbles joined him.

That filled the boat.  They would have to make two trips.

Kim had shaped two paddles by carefully erasing most of the wood from two logs.  Metria took one, while Arnolde took hold of the rope and hauled himself and the boat along across the river.  He wasn't strong for a centaur, but he was able to haul his own weight.  Metria paddled to help move the boat.

A loan shark, sniffing mortal meat, forged up to the boat.

This one was yellow, and shaped like a submarine sandwich.

Its tongue was like hot pepper, and its teeth like despair.  It opened its mouth just about wide enough to take in an arm or leg.  Sammy hissed, and Bubbles growled, but the big fish was undaunted.

Metria struck it on the tender snout with the paddle.  It hastily submerged, and they moved on across the river unbitten.  The centaur got out, clearly relieved to be back on terra firma.  Metria formed herself into a pulley connecting rope and boat, and pulled the boat back across.

Now Ichabod, Dug, Kim, and Jenny climbed into the boat, Dug and Kim taking the paddles.  Ichabod and Jenny took hold of the rope, not so much pulling the boat along as making sure it didn't get carried away by the current.  Metria settled in the center, keeping an eye out for mischief.

Mischief wasted no particular time orienting on them.  This shark was huge and dark, with teeth capable of crunching through their boat in short order.  It charged up, jaws open for a horrendous chomp.  No swat on the snout would dissuade this monster!

So Metria became a big mass of stink-horn-flavored toffee, and thrust herself into the oncoming maw.  The shark clamped down—and tasted the flavor, which was Xanth's very filthiest, stenchiest, disgustingest tang.  Arnolde caught a whiff, and remarked as his face turned a trifle bilious:  “Of this nefarious horn it has been said that if a sphinx with a clogged snout sniffed it once from a distance, through a thick filter, the poor creature would turn to putrid green stone for a century, and never clear its nose of the degradation.”

The shark, of course, tried to spit the loathsome mass out, but the stuff stuck to the once clean teeth and festered on the roiling tongue.  The putrefaction dripped into the mouth, sending up nauseating fumes.  The shark tried to wash it out with water, but the surrounding river turned an obscene shade of noisome hue and threatened to curdle.  Finally the shark plunged under the surface and swam away as fast as inhumanly possible, leaving a swath of bubbly retchings behind.

Metria turned smoky and floated up through the water, leaving just enough flavor behind to guarantee that the shark would not soon be free of it.  Stink horn was one of her favorite last resorts, reserved for only the most deserving opponents.  Usually it was sufficient merely to blow the horn, and its foul smelling sound would drive most creatures away.

But she had felt that the shark deserved more intimate treatment.

Meanwhile the boat was wending its way across the river, and a courteous breeze was clearing the air of the lingering bouquet.  The passengers were starting to look as if the miasma was, after all, bearable.

Ichabod faced Metria as she returned.  “Demoness, if you please—next time a monster threatens to engulf us—let it do so in peace.” But he managed a sickly smile.

They reached the far bank and clambered to shore.  The boat still reeked of horn, so they turned it loose to float disconsolately downstream.  The vegetation along the banks wilted temporarily while the boat was passing.

They set off across a field of posies that opened out before them.  Each flower puffed itself up as they passed, enhancing its color and stiffening its petals, posing.

Then a girl appeared before them.  No, it was two children, the other a boy:  evidently twins.  “Who are you?” the girl asked boldly.

Metria popped across to stand before the children.  “I am the Demoness Metria, passing through on business.  Who are you?”

“I'm Abscissa,” the girl replied.  “I travel along the X axis, because I have the X chromosome.”

“Along the what?”

“Horizontally.” A line appeared, and the girl suddenly jumped a brief distance to the side, without moving her legs.

“I'm Ordinate,” the boy said.  “I travel along the Y axis, because I have the Y chromosome.” A line appeared, and he jumped backwards without moving his legs.  “Vertically.”

“Geometrically and genetically speaking,” Ichabod remarked, intrigued.  He brought out his little notebook.  “These are most interesting talents.  Whose children are you?”

The two zipped back together.  “We were supposed to be Grey Murphy and Princess Ivy's twins,” Abscissa said.

“But they took too long to marry, so the stork dropped us off at an orphanage,” Ordinate said.

“Well, shame on them,” Kim said. “I knew they were taking too long about it.”

“And they should marry any time now,” Metria said. “Even if they don't know it.”

The others glanced at her curiously, but the glances bounced off her without penetrating, because she wasn't paying attention.

“Does the orphanage treat you well?” Arnolde inquired.

“Oh, sure,” Abscissa said.

“Of course, it can't keep us if we want to go out,” Ordinate said.

“Together we can go anywhere we want to,” Abscissa said.

“By projecting our coordinate map,” Ordinate said.

“This is most interesting,” Ichabod said, making another note.  “Instant travel by geometry.”

“Where can you go?” Jenny asked.

“Anywhere,” Abscissa said.

“Such as to that tree?” Jenny asked, pointing to a distant nut and bolt tree beyond the flower field.

“Sure,” Ordinate said.  “Watch.”

The two children concentrated.  Lines appeared, marked X and Y, stretching all across the field, intersecting each other, forming a grid.  A dot appeared beside the distant tree.  The two children took each other's hands, and suddenly they were standing by the tree.

Metria popped over to them.  “It is really you?” she asked.

“Sure, Demoness,” Abscissa answered.

“Who else could it be?” Ordinate asked.

“It might be an illusion.”

“No, we don't have that magic,” Abscissa said, frowning cutely.

“But it might be fun if we did,” Ordinate said.

Metria popped back to the group—and found the children already there.  “Say, you're good,” she said.

“Of course,” Abscissa said.  “We're always good.”

“But we'd have been better with a family,” Ordinate said.

“Maybe we'll find a family that needs twins,” Kim said.

“Gee, that would be nice,” Abscissa said, clapping her hands girlishly together.

“Will they let us eat eye scream every day and have pillow fights?” Ordinate asked.

“More likely they'll make you eat pillows and have eye scream fights,” Dug said.

“Dug!” Kim exclaimed indignantly.  “Don't tease them like that.”

But the children seemed thrilled with the notion.  “That's better yet,” Abscissa said.

“Food fights are great,” Ordinate agreed.

“Now see what you've done,” Kim said to Dug.  “You've given them a wicked notion.  You're lucky you're not held in contempt of the Adult Conspiracy.”

“Sorry 'bout that,” Dug said, not looking overwhelmed with remorse.

“Well, we have to go now,” Abscissa said.

“Because you folk are getting dull,” Ordinate said.

“This is the nature of adults,” Ichabod said.  But already the coordinate map was forming, and by the time he finished speaking, the twins were gone.

They moved on.  The token began tugging more strongly, so Metria knew they were getting close.  Indeed, they spied some hoofprints, and followed them.

“Young filly centaur,” Arnolde said.

“How can you tell?” Jenny asked.  “Couldn't it be a unicorn or something?”

“No.  Centaurs are especially heavy on the front feet, and tend to set them down farther apart, to brace the bodies for the use of the hands.  Also, the configuration of the prints is distinct from that of unicorns.”

All hoofprints looked alike to Metria, but it was clear that Arnolde knew what he was talking about.  When one set of prints crossed another, he immediately pointed out the fresher ones, before Metria confirmed it with the tug of the token.

Soon they found a bedraggled young filly centaur.  Her blond hair hung lankly around her shoulders and juvenile breasts, and there were curse burrs tangled in her tail.  She was eating bitter fruit, and looked miserable.

“If you stare, you'll reveal yourself as an ignorant Mundane,” Kim whispered to Dug.

“Uh, sure,” Dug agreed, dimming down the intensity of his stare.  Like many young men, he seemed to be fascinated by nude nymphs and centaur fillies.

“Chena Centaur?” Metria called.

The filly heard her, looked—and bolted.  In half a moment she was gone.

“Hey!” Metria exclaimed.  She floated after the creature.

“I have a summons to serve.”

But the centaur fled blindly, paying no attention.  Finally Metria popped to a place in front of her, and assumed the form of a centaur.  She didn't have the substance of a centaur, so was mostly smoky, but it did get the filly's attention and bring her to a halt.

She stood there, panting, looking wildly about, ready to bolt again the moment she spied a feasible route.

“Chena Centaur?” Metria asked again, sure that it was.

“Why don't you leave me alone!” the filly demanded tearfully.

“I can't.  I have to serve you with this summons.” Metria held out the token.

“Summons?”

“For a trial.  You see—”

Chena whirled around and bolted back the way she had come.  But that soon brought her up against the following party.  She turned again to face Metria, her eyes showing desperate white.  “I didn't mean any harm!”

Arnolde stepped forward.  “My dear, the trial is not of you. You are being summonsed as a mere Juror.”

The filly's head turned back and forth between Arnolde and Metria.  “But—”

“See, it says 'Juror' on it,” Metria said, holding the token up.  “And your name.  I must gather all the Jurors for the trial of Roxanne Roc.  If you come with me, I will see that you get there safely.  Several of these others in my party are similar summonsees.”

“Me,” Kim said.  “And him,” indicating Dug, “and her,” indicating Jenny Elf.

The filly began to relax.  “All right.  I'm Chena.” She took the token.

The day was getting on.  “Let's find a place to camp,”

Kim suggested.  “Tomorrow is another day.”