xanth 40 - isis orb (3 page)

So the flash hadn’t been accidental. Too bad.

They slept in the shelter, each rolled separately in a blanket harvested fresh from a blanket bush. Hapless was sorry they weren’t alone, and that Cylla had been unable to flash Eli into unconsciousness. But that was the way of it.

In the morning they took turns washing up in the pond. Then Hapless remembered something. “Are you seeing double today?”

“I am,” Eli agreed. “It’s awkward, but I’m used to it.”

“You see two of me?”

“Yes. You’re like twins.”

Then Hapless got an idea. “Try the glasses!”

Surprised, Eli fished them out of his pocket. He put them on. “Well, I’ll be darned and hemmed! They work!”

“They do?”

“Now I’m seeing single. These are just what I need for Two’s Day.”

“Make that three misses,” Cylla said. “That is, three times they weren’t the wrong thing. The only time the thing was wrong was the lipstick.” She paused, considering. “And if a man tried to get fresh with me, that lipstick might be just what I needed to turn him off. So I’m not sure the things have ever been wrong.”

“Maybe I misunderstood,” Hapless said. “I assumed that thinking outside the box meant that what was in it was wrong. Maybe what’s in it is right, but it’s still better to think for myself.”

Cylla nodded. “That could be. The Good Magician is usually cryptic.”

“These glasses certainly work for me,” Eli said. “I wonder if on other days the box will have other things to counter my curses?” But he reconsidered immediately. “But then it might cancel the glasses. I’d better wait until tomorrow to try it again.”

They had a breakfast of apple pie with cream from a rare creamweed. Then they set off together.

Soon Cylla slowed. “I’m not used to so much walking,” she confessed. “Maybe you two should go on ahead without me.”

“Now that would not be nice,” Eli said. He looked around. “Is that a wagon?”

Hapless saw it: an old blue wagon, the kind that children used.

“What use is a wagon?” Cylla demanded. “Someone would have to pull it.”

“Precisely,” Eli said. “Get in, the two of you.”

Perplexed, they did so. Cylla sat in front, her knees raised, and Hapless sat behind, his legs on either side of her. It was a tight fit, but actually rather pleasant for him, having her so close and snug.

“Ready?” Eli asked, taking the long handle. Hapless realized that the man could see under Cylla’s skirt from that angle. Then he remembered that he was immune to panties.

“Ready,” Cylla said a bit grimly. Was she annoyed that her panties might be visible, or that they had no effect?

Eli turned and pulled, and suddenly they were fairly zooming along the path. Then Hapless remembered: Eli was twice as efficient today. They were moving at twice the rate they would have on their own, and Cylla wasn’t getting tired.

“He’s a real help,” Hapless murmured.

“I still don’t like him,” Cylla murmured back. “There’s something about him that turns me off.”

“Maybe that you can’t freak him out by flashing.”

“Maybe.”

They made good progress, thanks to the doubled speed, and by noon came to a camping site they would normally have reached by dusk. So they paused only briefly, and went on to the next, accomplishing two days travel in one.

“You really helped,” Hapless told Eli.

“Glad to. But tomorrow will be different.”

“Tomorrow we’ll reach the Good Magician’s Castle, so it won’t matter.”

They made a little campfire so they could have a hot meal.

They took turns again washing up, first Cylla, then the two men. There was a problem when she returned to the shelter: she had forgotten to put her clothing back on. “Uh, Cylla-” Hapless said, half stunned.

She glanced down at herself as if just now realizing. “Oh. I washed my clothing. It’s not dry yet. I’ll hang it up by the fire.”

“Put something else on meanwhile,” Hapless said.

She walked to a bush and harvested a small sheet. She wrapped it around her torso. “How’s that?”

“That’s fine. It’s a good thing you didn’t have your panties on, because …” He shrugged. Even without the panties, she had had considerable effect. She was an attractive woman.

“Where’s Eli?” she asked as she went to the fire.

Hapless looked around. In half a moment he spied the man, frozen just inside the shelter. “He freaked out!” he said, surprised.

“But he’s immune to panties,” she said. Then she paused, catching on. “Which I wasn’t wearing.”

“He’s not immune to bare flesh,” Hapless said.

“That’s interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he knows?”

“I doubt he does, or he wouldn’t have looked.”

She nodded. “Let’s not tell him.”

Hapless shrugged again. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” He walked to Eli and snapped his fingers. The man recovered, and resumed walking, unaware that he had been in stasis.

The patter of rain on his face woke Hapless next morning. They were sleeping separately inside the shelter, yet the water was falling. Then he remembered Eli’s curse. The man was sleeping, and it was raining solidly on him. The two of them were close enough to catch the edge of it.

“For pity’s sake!” Cylla said, flinging off her wet blanket and scrambling out of the way. Hapless closed his eyes just in time. “The guy’s a menace!”

“He can’t help it. It’s his curse.”

“I suppose. Let’s get out of here.” She took his hand and led him outside, his eyes still closed so that he wouldn’t freak out.

In due course they got dry and dressed, and harvested two umbrellas from the convenient umbrella tree. Eli stayed with his sodden clothing; he was used to this. “Sorry,” he said. “I know I’m not very good company.”

“But you helped yesterday,” Cylla said.

Hapless was surprised; she seemed to have mellowed toward the man. After a moment he thought he figured out why: she preferred men she could control, and Eli had seemed uncontrollable by conventional means such as panties. But the discovery of his weakness for the absence of panties meant that she could after all control him when she wanted to, without resorting to her talent for hallucination. That made him eligible. In fact the box had called it: panties were the wrong thing for her, because they stopped her power over him.

And where did that leave Hapless? Well, the box had indicated at the outset that Cylla was not for him. He liked her, and maybe she liked him, but in the larger picture—outside the box—they were not for each other. He just had to accept that.

“Sorry about that,” she murmured as if reading his thoughts. “I guess it was not to be.”

“I guess the box warned me because otherwise I would have gotten the wrong idea.”

“Probably it wouldn’t have worked out, so we’re saving ourselves heartache by realizing that at the outset.”

“Yes,” he agreed despondently. “And I guess it warned you that panties were not what you needed. Because they freak out the wrong man.”

“Yes. I am coming to appreciate that. To think outside the box.”

They trudged on through the rain. At least Hapless and Cylla had their umbrellas, and there wasn’t far to go, thanks to the good traveling the day before. Before noon they came in sight of the Good Magician’s Castle.

“I guess this is where we part company,” Eli said. “We’ll have to make our own ways through the Challenges.”

“Do we?” Cylla asked.

“Don’t we? Much as I’d like to have your company, I know you don’t like mine.”

“I am reconsidering. I think I can handle your curse if you can handle mine.”

“Your hallucinations? Actually I find them intriguing, now that I know they
are
hallucinations.”

“You do? Eli, maybe we don’t need to go to all the complicated trouble of asking the Good Magician a Question and having to pay through the nose for his stupid Answer. What we each really want is a good partner who can handle us as we are. Maybe we can solve each other’s problems instead, if that notion’s not all wet.”

“Oh, I’d like that!”

“So why don’t we give it a try? I think the box gave us the clue, if only by indicating what was wrong for us.”

“But the box gave me glasses that corrected my double vision. How does that relate?”

“I think I understand that. The glasses nullified part of your curse, but that’s not your answer. You don’t want to be depend on things to cancel your problems, you want to handle them as they are. To embrace your talent, not reject it. Rather than wear glasses to do it, why not be with someone who maybe looks better doubled?”

He looked at her. “You would look twice as good,” he agreed. He brought out the glasses and threw them away.

She folded her umbrella, letting the rain soak her, and stepped into him for a kiss. Little hearts radiated out.

Hapless walked away, knowing that he was no longer relevant to their scene. It was time for him to tackle the Challenges, alone.

What interested him was the way the box had broadened his thinking. He did need to think outside the box, not settling for the too-easy answers it seemed to offer. That would benefit him throughout his life. That was the real lesson of the box.

He oriented on the castle ahead. He had Challenges to tackle.

Chapter 2:

Mission

The castle looked distressingly ordinary, with a solid outer wall, high turrets, bright pennants, a moat with a visible moat monster, and trees and bushes surrounding the whole. Was it really the notorious Good Magician’s Castle? It looked as if he could just walk up to it, cross the drawbridge, and go on in. It could belong to anyone with the status to rate such an edifice. But this was where the enchanted path had led.

Well, he would find out. He walked down toward the drawbridge, following the path between the trees.

And found himself in a bowling alley. He knew that was what it was, because cats were bowling. That made punnish sense; they were obviously alley cats.

He tried to pass it by, but it was closed, with no apparent exit. This must be the first Challenge. All he had to do was figure out the nature of its challenge, solve it, and move on.

He paused to consider the scene more closely, and noticed something odd. They were not using regular pins, they were using bowls. Bowls of berries. Green berries, yellow berries, brown berries, white berries, black berries, blue berries—ten different types. When a cat rolled the ball—which was a solid glass globe—it knocked the berry bowls over and the berries flew out. Then kittens came out from a service nook to clean up the mess, and new bowls were set in place. Well, they were entitled to play the game any way they wanted to.

So how was he to get past this? Was he supposed to get into the game himself, and if he won it he would move on? There was a huge problem there: Hapless was awful at bowling. When he rolled the ball, it was a challenge even to score on the gutter. Trying to roll a glass ball to knock down berry bowls was in invitation to disaster. There had to be some other way.

Tweaked by a notion, he brought out the little box and opened it. It was empty; no help there, even in a negative way. He was truly on his own.

Or was he? The empty box suggested that there was no way, but he was supposed to think outside the box. What was outside?

He shook his head ruefully. The whole world was outside! That was no help.

Maybe he simply had to try what he never would ordinarily, and bowl. That was certainly outside his box.

“Mind if I cut in?” he inquired, picking up the bowling ball before a regular cat could. The cat shrugged, not protesting.

Hapless heaved the ball down the alley. Sure enough, it veered off into the gutter with a splash. He had verified it: this was not the way.

Then he reconsidered. His concern was this particular scene. Suppose there were no legitimate way to escape it? Did that mean he needed to find an illegitimate way? To break the rules? He didn’t like cheating, but wasn’t sure that there was such a thing in a situation like this. Merely something that wasn’t any normal part of this scene.

He studied the cats, who ignored him. They were rough-hewn specimens with scratches and missing patches of fur from fights. He didn’t want to mess with them.

He considered the berry bowls. As he watched, a cat made a strike and berries flew all around, several of them striking Hapless before they rolled into the alley and on out of sight. One struck his belly, poking him; that would be a poke berry. Another bopped him on the head. He caught it and looked at it: a shad berry, smelling faintly of fish.

Fish. Didn’t cats like fish? Wouldn’t they prefer to eat those berries, rather than let them escape? But the cats were at the far end of the alley, so it seemed didn’t know what they were missing. Maybe the cleanup kittens didn’t tell them, preferring to eat the berries out of sight.

A berry-shaped bulb flashed over his head. Maybe that was the way out!

He stood near a setting of ten bowls. When the bowling ball rolled down to bash the collection, Hapless snatched up the one with shad berries and carried it to other end of the alley. “Get a whiff of this!” he said, and set the odoriferous bowl down before the cat.

The cat tried to ignore him, but the smell got to it, and in a moment it was delving into the berries. The other cats came, demanding their share. In half another moment all of them were fighting for the bowl, completely distracted.

Hapless walked down to the service nook where the kittens lurked. Sure enough, there was a small service door leading out. Hapless dived through it.

And he was in the next Challenge. Before him was a drab donkey. “Er, hello,” he said uncertainly.

“Hello yourself, idiot,” the donkey replied.

This set Hapless back a bit. He wasn’t used to hearing animals talk in human dialect, though he knew it happened on occasion. “Um, I’m Hapless. Who are you?”

“I am Alec, simpleton. I see that you are well named. You’re pathetic.”

The creature was obviously trying to get his goat, or something similar. Was this part of the Challenge? It seemed safest to refuse to be baited. “You are evidently very intelligent.”