Board Stiff (Xanth) (23 page)

“You curdle milk?” Ease asked.

“By staring at it through my veil,” the Gorgon explained. “My filtered stare has diluted effect. Even so I have to be careful; if I overdo it, it can crystallize into monster cheese.”

“Wira told us how the Good Magician made the stork go through the Challenges,” Mitch said. “That’s an outrage.”

“No, it’s one of his Senior Moments. He last track, and didn’t realize the stork was on business. But it is true that he can be annoying in his application of the rules. Long ago I came to ask him if he would marry me, and not only did I have to handle the Challenges, he made me perform a year’s service before he gave me his answer.”

“He did that?” Mitch asked amazed. “What a lout!”

“No, as it turned out it gave me a year working closely with him before the commitment. In that time I learned how grouchy he tends to be, but also how thoughtful.”

“Thoughtful?”

“I had the opportunity to change my mind before marrying him. I knew exactly what I was getting into. That was thoughtful of him.”

“He has a mechanical kind of thoughtfulness,” Pewter said.

“Which, from you, is a compliment,” the Gorgon said. Evidently she knew Pewter as of old.

“What about the four or five other wives?” Ease asked.

“That wasn’t his fault. A lot can happen in the course of a century or so. They had married him, in due course left him or faded out, and then wound up in Hell for safekeeping. He came there in a hand-basket to rescue me after I died, and wound up getting more than he had expected. So we worked it out. Actually it’s better this way; no one of us could stand him continuously, and the others are all nice people. We get along.”

Another woman appeared. “Your hour is done,” she said.

The Gorgon glanced at her watch, whose crystal Kandy saw was cracked; being constantly looked at by her, even through a veil, must be hard on it. “So it is! I got distracted. I haven’t even served those refreshments I promised.” She gestured to the newcomer. “This is Sofia, Wife of the next hour.”

“I will take care of it,” Sofia said as the Gorgon departed. Then she introduced herself more fully. “I am Sofia Socksorter, Humfrey’s fourth wife, from Mundania.” She fetched a plate of cookies and two mugs of boot rear. Kandy knew the men would get a kick out of that, having endured pun-free meals for a while.

“Socksorter?” Mitch asked. “That’s an odd name.”

“Not at all. It’s an accurate description of my talent, which I developed after a few years in Xanth. Humfrey uses many socks, but has no sense about caring for them. They wind up in crannies, nooks, and lost. He never had a matching pair of clean ones. So he married me to handle his socks.”

“To handle his socks?” Mitch asked, seeming to have difficulty assimilating that.

“It was his biggest problem. But they are in proper order now, as is the rest of the household.” Sofia was obviously proud of her accomplishment.

Astrid and Tiara returned, escorted by Wira, who had evidently acquainted them with the change in Wives. “It’s arranged,” Tiara said. “I have MareAnn’s written authorization for the baby. I’ll go out now, before the stork gets tired of waiting.”

“We’ll help,” Astrid said. “That means all of us.” She sent the men a look that crackled even through her dark glasses. “Because we’re making a deal to exchange services, our group with the Good Magician, and we’re all included even if we play different roles.”

The others nodded. It was a valid point.

“We’ll help too,” Sofia said. Sure enough, the remaining Wives showed up and were duly introduced: The Gorgon, Rose of Roogna, the Maiden Taiwan, Dara Demoness, and of course MareAnn. Astrid hugged MareAnn briefly; they were friends.

The Wives led them along a path that wended its way safely around assorted Challenges in the making, across the lowered drawbridge, under the nose of the moat monster who knew better than to threaten them, and to the verge of the castle environs. There was the stork, standing with its bundle just outside that limit, looking frustrated. In fact a wisp of steam was rising from its beak. “This is an outrage!” it said. “I will file a complaint.”

Tiara stepped up to it. “We are so sorry,” she said. “It was a misunderstanding. I will take the baby and give it to MareAnn.”

The stork did a double-take. “Haven’t I seen you before? You’re colored! You stand out like a sick finger in this shades-of-gray environment.”

“Yes, we are from Xanth proper,” Tiara said. “Just visiting Pyramid, so we retain our original colors. We met you at the Centaur demesnes, where there was a similar problem of delivery.”

“Indeed there was,” the stork agreed hotly. Its feathers were ruffled. “I’m just trying to do my job, but do I get any cooperation? Nooo, folk find every idiotic pretext to interfere with a normal delivery.”

“We apologize,” Tiara said.

“It takes more than an apology to fix such an irregular interference! This puts me behind my schedule.”

“A gourd style apology,” she clarified. Then she kissed the stork on the beak.

“Oh for wailing loudly!” the stork exclaimed. “Not that. We can’t stand the gourd. I accept your apology, confound it. Take the ever-loving baby and be done with it. I have to move on anyway.”

“Thank you,” Tiara said sweetly. She had clearly figured out how to use what she had learned about the gourd, knowing the stork would not want any such demonstration. She had lived a sheltered life, but she had potential and was a quick study. She carefully picked up the bundle and carried it across to MareAnn, who hugged it joyfully.

“An outrage,” the stork repeated as it spread its wings and took off. It had accepted the apology under duress and was hardly mollified.

There was a smattering of applause from the assembled Wives. They understood perfectly what Tiara had done. Then they led the way back into the castle.

“The Good Magician will see you now,” Wira said, and showed them up the cramped winding stairway to the cramped office. Somehow the five of them plus Wira managed to fit into it.

“The members of the Quest are here for their Answer, Magician,” Wira said. “Per the deal.”

The Good Magician looked exactly as he had before, except he was in shades of gray. “Ask,” he grumped.

“Where is the pun virus antidote?” Ease asked.

“That’s the wrong question.”

“Well, answer it anyway,” Ease said.

“It’s on another world of Ida, impossibly far away, where the sea is made of it. It even has tides. Puns flourish there. Princess Ida can direct you to it. But it is pointless to go there, because the radiation of space between planets, and the differing magic of other worlds, denatures it and it won’t work on Xanth.”

They digested that. “So what’s the right question?” Mitch asked.

“Where in Xanth is the portal that accesses Planet Antidote directly?”

And of course he wouldn’t answer that, because his Answer had been expended. Even though they were on a Quest he had sent them on.

“Thank you,” Ease said tightly.

They turned around and squeezed out of the study, disgruntled. “There is a reason,” Humfrey muttered after them.

“There’s always a reason,” Pewter muttered back.

Had the situation not been so perversely serious, Kandy would have been amused to see the largely emotionless Pewter reacting exactly like a living person. They all knew how grumpy and perverse the Good Magician could be. But it was true: usually in the end there turned out to be good reason for the way he did things.

“I’m sorry,” Wira murmured as they reached the ground floor. “At least now you know the right Question. Maybe you can visit another Humfrey on another world and get the Answer.”

“And serve a year for it?” Astrid asked. “We don’t have the time. The puns of Xanth are being decimated even as we search.”

“We’re all sorry,” Sofia said. “We truly appreciate what you did for MareAnn, and would help you if we could, but--”

“But you can’t do us a favor that will impact our size when we depart,” Astrid said. “We understand. But tell me: is advice a favor?”

“That depends on its usefulness,” Sofia said. “Useless advice is free.”

“Then maybe you could offer us some useless advice.”

The Wives nodded, appreciating the logic. “Here’s some useless advice,” Dara Demoness said. “Go see Princess Ida on the Blue Face. She may be able to show you the Antidote planet. That won’t do you any good, but might help you orient.”

“But wouldn’t any favor Princess Ida does us affect our stature?” Tiara asked.

“No, she’s necessarily immune, because it is her job to facilitate travel between the worlds. As long as you keep it to that business, there’s no problem.”

“Thank you.”

The Wives packed them box lunches, the assorted boxes being made of different pastries and crackers, and they were on their way. They followed an enchanted path so that no nasty predators could bother them, and there was a stream with cool gray water to drink. Not only was the path safe, the Wives assured them, it would get them there much faster than otherwise. They would not have to struggle with the formidable geography of this world.

“Why take the trouble to get to the blue face if there’s really nothing there for us?” Ease asked.

“Because there will be something there for us,” Mitch answered. “It was coded as useless advice to avoid the planetary effect for a favor.”

“I don’t see how,” Ease said.

“That’s just as well. If we all understood it perfectly, there would be an effect.”

“You’re so smart,” Tiara said. “I don’t see it either.”

“Don’t argue, or I’ll kiss you.”

“Argue,” she said, smiling.

He kissed her, then paused startled. “You’re taller!”

The others checked. Tiara was indeed slightly taller than she had been. That meant that the exchange of favors had not quite balanced. The others were unchanged, which simply meant that Tiara, as the active party, had been affected more. The difference was slight and hardly made a difference, fortunately.

There was a path leading to the sharply defined edge of the gray face. As they followed it, their tilt increased, until they seemed to be climbing a steep slope. They had to be sure of their footing.

Then they came to the edge. Beyond it was the blue face, like the other side of a mountain ridge. They straddled it carefully, for a moment looking at both landscapes, then started down the blue.

As they went the slope decreased, though the terrain was flat, and they walked increasingly upright. That made progress easier. Actually there were hills and valleys, but it was the underlying orientation that counted. Meanwhile they passed fields of blue plants with blue flowers, a blue stream, and saw blue birds of all types. The most common were in the shape of a J: blue J’s.

A blue dusk approached as the path led them to a way station where they could spend the night.

A man was there, poring over a kind of blue paper with whitish lines. “Oh, hello foreign travelers,” he said. “I am the Blue Prince, checking the specifications for this shelter. It seems to be in order.” He rolled up the paper. “It is important that these things be constructed correctly.”

Blue prince, Kandy thought. Blue prints. The puns remained in good order, here on Pyramid.

They ate their boxes and settled down for the night. Mitch and Tiara were in one corner, Pewter was by himself, and that left Ease and Astrid. “I don’t want to sleep in this dress,” she said. “I might knock off a sequin.”

“Take it off,” Ease said. “I won’t mind.”

“It’s not dark enough. You’ll freak out.”

“Maybe I won’t. Maybe we could--” She had drawn up her skirt to show her panties, and he had freaked out. He was sound asleep.

“You really don’t need to worry about being bothered by men when you sleep,” Kandy said, amused.

“True,” Astrid agreed. “Yet there are times when I wish I could turn it off. So I could . . .” She trailed off, frustrated.

“So you could love a man,” Kandy finished for her. “Darkness would take care of the freakout, and your dark glasses would stop your death stare, but your ambiance would still take him out.”

“Yes. I wish I could find a man who was satisfied to look at me and talk to me at a distance, without wanting me to look back at him, so we could know and appreciate each other for reasons other than my appearance. Who might touch me for no longer than he could hold his breath, and be satisfied with that. But that doesn’t seem to be the way men are made.”

“It doesn’t,” Kandy agreed. “Yet MareAnn would not have let you join the Quest if she hadn’t thought there could be a way.”

“I fear she was too optimistic.”

Kandy feared the same. Yet her own situation was hardly better. She was with Ease, and could touch him freely, but never have him respond. “We have to believe that things will work out for all of us, somehow.”

“Somehow,” Astrid agreed, as she moved a bit apart and lay down on the blue hay. “But it’s good to have you as a friend, regardless.”

“The feeling is mutual.” And it was. “When this Quest is done, however it works out, will we have to separate?”

Astrid didn’t answer. Kandy was faintly annoyed. Then she heard a muffled sound, and realized that Astrid was crying. That brought her own tears.

“Come here a moment,” she called. “I think in my present form I can hug you.” She stood up, leaving Ease’s hand on her ankle.

Astrid came, and they hugged. It was true: Kandy was somewhat ghostlike, and the basilisk fumes did not affect her much. But they had to break it off soon, because the fumes could harm Ease. Still, it was worth doing. They would continue as friends after the Quest, regardless how it turned out. That was important to them both.

In the morning they resumed their walk, and in due course approached a blue stone house on a ridge of blue mountains. And there, tending a garden of blue gentians, was a woman wearing a small crown. A little ball orbited her head. No, it looked more like a doughnut.

“That is Torus, the next in the procession of worlds,” Pewter said.

Tiara approached her while the others hung back. “Princess Ida, I presume?”

“Why yes,” the blue woman agreed. “Have we met before? I see you are from Xanth.”