Cube Route (26 page)

    “Indeed. And the dog is too old to live long. This is really outside her range. So you need to move From quickly, for her sake.”

    “From. That's east?” Now she remembered that Princess Ida had told her that.

    “Yes. Toward the past, and youth. You'll get used to it.”

    “I hope so. Thank you for clarifying things.”

    “I knew you would need it, so I intercepted you. You both will be fine, as you get younger. Just beware the Comic Strips.”

    Princess Ida had said that. “Just what is a Comic Strip?”

    “It's a boundary between sections, jammed with egregious puns. That's why we don't cross the Strips unless we really have to; nobody can stand them.”

    “I'll be careful,” Cube agreed. Now she had another belated memory: she had encountered a Comic Strip at the Good Magician's castle. She hadn't had to ask at all. Some savvy traveler she was proving to be! “Thanks again.”

    “Oh, I almost forgot. You must meet Mother.”

    “Princess Ivy?”

    “King Ivy. She wanted to talk with you.”

    Cube was taken aback. “Not Queen Ivy?”

    “Xanth is ruled by kings, and Ptero echoes it. Come.”

    Cube followed her to the throne room. There sat Ivy, about fifteen years older, with a more substantial crown. “Hello, Cube!” she said immediately, rising to join her. “I'm so glad you could come.”

    What was the protocol to meet a king? Cube had no idea. “Uh, hello,” she said faintly.

    Ivy hugged her. “The girls' adventure with you was one of the defining experiences of their childhood. They learned some of the limits of their powers of magic. I think it helped them grow up. I just wanted to thank you again.”

    “Uh, you're welcome. They were--are--a big help.”

    “That's right--this is part of your Quest. Then I won't keep you longer. It wouldn't be kind to Seren; she has to get younger quickly.”

    Cube had evidently been dismissed. Melody guided her out. “Mother really worried when we were gone,” she confided. “We didn't realize how much, at the time. But it certainly was a great adventure with a surprising conclusion. Ah, here is the thread.”

    She was right: the thread led out the back door of the castle and across the moat. But there was no bridge at this location. “Uh--”

    “Don't be concerned; Soufflé will take you across.”

    The moat monster's head rose from the water. He set it at the edge before her, and Cube climbed on. She held the dog on her lap. Then he carried them smoothly across and deposited them beyond the moat. “Thank you,” she said.

    Soufflé nodded and sank out of sight.

    “Hi.” It was a seven-year-old boy standing by the bank. Cube had been too distracted by the ride to notice him before. “I'm Vice.”

    “Hello, Vice. I'm Cube, from Xanth.”

    “Hi.” It was a seven-year-old girl. “I'm Versa.” She petted Diamond.

    “Our talent is to change anything to its opposite,” Vice said proudly.

    “And back again,” Versa said.

    “That's nice for a brother and sister,” Cube said.

    Both laughed. “We're not siblings,” Vice said.

    “We're cousins,” Versa said.

    “But you look like twins.”

    “That's because we're the children of twins,” Vice said.

    “Dawn and Eve,” Versa said.

    Cube remembered that the Princesses Dawn and Eve were the older cousins of the three little Princesses, so it was natural that they be in the vicinity. But they were only about twelve years old. How could they have children?

    Then she remembered that this was fifteen years in her future. Plenty of time to grow up, marry, and summon storks.

    “I am going east,” Cube said. “You are welcome to come along if you wish.”

    “We mustn't,” Vice said.

    “We'd get too young,” Versa said.

    Oh. Of course, here where time was geography. “Then it has been nice meeting you,” Cube said.

    “Bye,” the two said together.

    They followed the path beyond Castle Roogna, and sure enough, the dog got visibly younger, and Cube felt better. But her initial pleasure in this world had changed; now she just wanted to do what she was here to do, and return to normal.

    As they walked, some things occurred to her. She was here in soul form, and so was the dog--but what about her Companions? They must still be in the pouch, back with her body. That had to be why she couldn't call them out; this was an empty ghost pouch.

    And she was not beautiful. She didn't need to see her face; she could see her body. She was the same way she had always been, only older. What did that suggest for her future? Was she going to fail the Quest after all? That was a disquieting notion.

    They came to a changed scene. It was not exactly a wall, but it wasn't forest either. The thread led right through it.

    Then she remembered the Comic Strips: this must be one. She gazed at it for half a while. It didn't look bad. Why were people so wary of these Strips? So they had egregious puns; that wasn't like death or dismemberment. She could handle puns. This seemed to be a perfectly pleasant small valley with flowers and browsing deer beside a trickling streamlet. Except that at its near fringe was a row of prickly plants she knew better than to touch. Fortunately there was an avenue through them, between two tall trees.

    Maybe this was a punless section of the Strip. Or maybe it took time for the puns to collect, like biting flies, when someone stepped into it.

    “Let's go,” she said to the dog. “We'll just go straight across, and it should be all right.”

    Diamond wagged her tail.

    They stepped between the trees. Cube felt something touch her body, causing her to start with alarm. It was a cobweb she hadn't seen in the shadow. She tried to scrape it off, but it clung to her like a film of paint. It had caught Diamond too; she was trying to brush it off with a paw, but not succeeding.

    “Well, a web is harmless, as long as there's no big spider. We'll cross first, then take time to get it off.”

    They forged on. But now the scene had changed. The valley was darker, and the stream had become a rushing torrent. The deer were now rather more sinister creatures with red eyes and big horns. “We can't cross that! How did it change so fast?”

    Even as she watched, the scene changed again, becoming lighter but stranger. Now the creatures were alien, not threatening but not reassuring either, and the river was odd. In fact it looked like mercury flowing down a metallic channel. But mercury was deadly; she didn't want to breathe its fumes. She stepped back in fright, but found she couldn't retreat; the prickly plants had closed in behind them. That intensified her fear.

    The dog whined. Cube saw why: the valley had become a graveyard, with walking skeletons beside a sickly flow of pus. This just kept getting worse! Every time she looked, it was different.

    Then she reconsidered. Could she be responsible for the changes? They seemed to vary with her mood. So if she could make herself feel good--

    The lovely valley returned, with the clear stream and browsing deer. So she was right; all she needed was a good mood. But this was supposed to be a Comic Strip, so there must be a pun. What pun?

    Then she saw a little sign: LANDS CAPE. Suddenly it fitted together. She had inadvertently donned a cape, thinking it a cobweb, and so had the dog. It changed her view of the land. Landscape. That was the pun. She had assumed that the puns would be silly or humorous. This one was not.

    “Come on, Seren,” she said briskly. “We can get through this, if we just keep our minds clear.”

    But how were they to have clear minds, while shrouded by the capes? She realized she had to get rid of the mood effect, because any little thing could set off a mood change and then the phenomenon would feed on itself. But the cape was invisible and largely intangible.

    Well, there was one way. Cube took off her clothing, carrying the cloak with it. She stuffed her things in the pouch for safekeeping. Of course she wouldn't want to be seen bare by any other person; she was no voluptuous nymph. As soon as they got out of the Comic Strip, she'd brush off her clothing and put it back on.

    She paused, realizing that she had fallen into another pun: ComicStrip, and she had stripped. Well, it couldn't be helped.

    Now the valley was neither pleasant nor horrible; it was purely routine. Just a dip with a bit of water and a few rocks that had seemed like animals before. She was seeing it clearly for the first time.

    She used her spread fingers to comb the cloak from Diamond, and soon the dog was seeing clearly too. But why had she seen it differently before she walked into the cloak? She must have been looking through the cloak, so that it distorted her perception.

    But then a group of goblins charged along the valley. They surrounded Cube and Diamond, reaching for them. They started pinching bare flesh. Diamond yelped.

    “Hey!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

    “We're the vice squad,” a goblin answered. “We pinch bare people for no reason.”

    It was another pun. “Well stop it! The dog isn't bare, she's wearing her fur, and I'm not worth it.”

    The goblin looked at her. “Good point.” They moved on.

    Cube was not entirely pleased. She knew that had she had the lush figure of a nymph, the goblin would not have agreed. Which suggested that there was reason for the pinching, but not one the pinchers admitted to.

    Meanwhile she had a scratch on her bottom where she had been pinched. How sanitary were those goblins? Could she be infected? She'd like to have a magic medicine.

    And there it was: a big jar labeled PENICILLIN. She should be able to smear some of that on the scratch, and it would get rid of any infection. She reached into the jar and pulled out--a pen. She tried again, and got a pencil. Then a piece of white chalk.

    “This isn't medicine,” she said, annoyed.

    Then she got the pun: penicillin made writing utensils like pens and pencils. In the jar.

    “Now I understand why folk can't stand the Comic Strips,” she said. “Come on, Seren; we're getting out of here.”

    They forged on across the river and up the far slope, and soon were back in regular territory. Cube brought her clothing out of the pouch and used the same technique she had used on the dog to clear the invisible cloak from it. She donned it, and the terrain did not change with her mood, so she was all right.

    As they continued east, or “From,” the years peeled away, until Cube realized she was in her teens again, and the dog was quite lively. But how far was the thread taking them? Cube could get younger, but the dog would soon reach her limit.

    The thread led to a pleasant house in a pleasant garden. Maybe this was their destination. Cube hoped so; she found she was not getting tired, in soul form, but she was getting bored.

    They came to the door of the house. Cube knocked. In a moment it opened.

    “Oh, there you are!” It was a young woman of ordinary aspect, which was of course better than Cube's aspect. She was about twenty years old. “Right on time.” But of course Cube was about sixteen years old now, so was four years younger.

    “On time?” Cube asked, bemused.

    “Yes. I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Lacky, a might-be daughter of Vernon and Lacuna, and my talent is writing things true. That is, what I write comes true, though not always in the way I expect.”

    Who were Vernon and Lacuna? Cube found the names vaguely familiar, but couldn't place them. She had met so many folk recently that it was hard to keep them all straight. Probably it didn't matter. Evidently they hadn't had this daughter in Xanth, so she was confined here as one they might have had. “I'm Cube, on a private Quest. This is Seren.” The dog wagged her tail.

    “Oh, that can't be right. I needed a name for a dog, so I wrote 'Diamond.' You see, my companion Boss needs company of his own kind, so I thought maybe a nice female dog.”

    Cube reached down and removed the pacifier from the dog's collar. “I--I misspoke. This is Diamond.”

    “Wonderful!” Lacky turned her head. “Boss! You have company!”

    A big male black Labrador dog appeared beside her. Diamond looked surprised.

    “You were wearing the pacifier,” Cube explained to her. “It made you serendipitous. You found what you didn't expect.”

    “And of course you'll stay,” Lacky said. “Oh, Prince Dolin will be so pleased. He likes dogs.”

    “Prince Dolin?” Cube asked blankly.

    “The son of Prince Dolph and Princess Taplin. He's a child; he died early. It's a long story. I take Boss to visit him regularly. Now I'll take both dogs.”

    “I think you have also found a home,” Cube said to Diamond. “By surprise, of course. Are you satisfied to stay here?”

    Diamond wagged her tail.

    Cube found a tear in her eye that she hadn't expected. She had gotten used to Diamond's company. But this was best. “Then I'll go now,” she said, turning away before her tears embarrassed her.

    “But you must stay and visit,” Lacky protested.

    “No thank you,” Cube said tightly. “I have an urgent mission.” She hurried on, following the thread. It was best this way. She realized that she had the pacifier now, so was finding what she wasn't looking for--such as the loss of Diamond. Yet of course this was best for the dog. She couldn't begrudge that.

    There was a sound behind her. She turned to look, and saw the two dogs racing after her. In a moment they caught up, and of course she had to pet them both. They made a fine couple.

    Lacky approached. “You have to meet Prince Dolin. Boss thinks he has something for you.”

    How did she know what the dog thought? “But I don't even know Prince Dolin, and I have to be on my way.” She refrained from saying that she had used up more than enough time traveling here, apparently just to find a home for Diamond. Of course that was worth doing, but surely wasn't on the way to Counter Xanth. She suspected she had a long lonely trek back the way she had come. She needed to get moving.