Knot Gneiss (19 page)

“I suppose it would be hard to function, if all types of reversal occurred at once,” Wenda said.

They returned to the wagon. The men were standing beside the wagon, and Meryl was hovering above it, all looking somewhat disgruntled.

“Let us guess,” Ida said with a suppressed quarter of a smile. “You sat down and became monsters.”

“How did you know?” Hilarion asked.

“We had a similar experience. But it is only appearance, not reality, as we know.”

“So you won’t mind if we sit?” Meryl asked.

“Not at all.”

“We have food,” Wenda said. “We believe it is wholesome. It only looks repulsive.”

“How does it taste?” Hilarion asked.

Wenda laughed. “We didn’t have the nerve to try it.” She reached into the basket and brought out a clot of greenish gunk. She put it to her mouth, forced herself, and bit into it. “Blueberry!” she exclaimed.

Now Angela thought of something else. “Why didn’t it show itself as it really is when we separated it from the ground?”

“I believe I know,” Ida said. Wenda was coming to appreciate how smart a woman she was, quite apart from her Sorceress magic. “We are from elsewhere, so change our appearance only when we touch the planet. But the berries are of this world, so it is natural for them to retain the reversal magic.”

“That does make sense,” Hilarion agreed. He sat down, becoming an ogre. “I must say, you are a sensible woman, Ida.”

“Thank you. I try to be.” Ida sat too, becoming the ogress. She set the basket between them. Meryl dropped down to curl her tail on the ground, and became a horrendous kraken weed. Angela joined them, becoming the demoness. Wenda sat, and became a female troll.

But the berries were very good. How fortunate that their taste had not been affected!

In due course they settled for the night. All the worlds seemed to have similar air and days, which was another blessing. Their personal forms might look horrendous, but in other respects they were comfortable.

Suddenly an ogre stood before Wenda. She stifled her automatic scream. “Its appearance!” she cried. “I am Wenda. You are Charming!”

“You do sound like her,” he agreed. “But your complexion has really deteriorated.”

“This is Reverse World,” Wenda said. “Everything is reversed. In appearance. I’m still the same nymph, really.”

He stepped forward and touched her with a hamhand. “So you are,” he agreed, relieved. “Still, a little more darkness would help.”

She got to her feet, donning her wooden shoes, and returned to her natural appearance. Charming, evidently anticipating a different environment, seemed to be in bare feet.

“Shall we wait a bit, and chat?” Eris asked. She had not actually changed, perhaps being beyond the power of this world.

“Yes,” Beauregard said. He too had not changed, as he was hovering above the ground. But if he had in mind anything of a lying down nature, he would become a seeming angel, and he perhaps preferred to avoid that.

“I am curious,” Eris said politely. “Why did you come here, instead of returning to Xanth?” She could have read their minds; that’s what made her query polite, indicating that she was leaving them the privacy of their thoughts.

“It was an accident,” Wenda explained. “The reverse-wood shell reversed our direction, and we were through the wrong Door before we realized. Now we have to find the return Door.”

Eris sighed. “I fear you will have trouble finding it, but I do not want to interfere with your Quest.”

Wenda was almost inclined to request exactly such interference, but worried that it would indeed cause a rift between Demons, and that would not be smart. “We understand.”

“Actually it’s an interesting adventure,” Jumper said. “It never occurred to me that such a world existed.”

“Oh, it does,” Eris said. “It’s the source of most of the reverse wood of this sector, and even of some transplants so that more can grow elsewhere. There’s a regular trade with other worlds.”

“There’s trade between other worlds?” Wenda asked.

“There is,” the Demoness agreed. “Xanth is a bit backward in that respect, but surely enjoys its isolation.”

Wenda was privately amazed. Not so much at the interaction of other worlds, but that the Demoness would actually chat with mortals. Her relationship with Jumper must have mellowed her.

Hardly,
Eris’s thought came.
It’s that I love Jumper, and you are his best friend. Without you he would not have rescued me. So I treat you with the courtesy that will please him. Were he not present, I would pay you no attention.

That was plain enough, if somewhat lacking in tact. Demons normally hardly cared whether individual mortals lived or died, unless there was a Demon wager connected. But Wenda couldn’t help liking the Demoness anyway. Maybe it was because without her, Jumper would have wound up jumping between weeds, biting the heads off bugs, lonely, and dead in months. Eris had rescued him forever from such a fate. Wenda truly appreciated that.

Now it was dark enough. They could lie down without showing their monstrous semblances. That evidently made a difference to Charming and Beauregard.

Six and a half minutes later Charming was asleep, and gone. The conjugal visit was over, and normal life resumed.

In the morning Jumper practiced with the roc-bird form while the others organized for the resumption of the travel.

“Do you know,” Ida said, “I believe that we can adapt to this reversal of appearances if we concentrate. We simply need to school ourselves to see the opposite of what seems to be there.”

“Like seeing Prince Charming instead of an ogre,” Wenda agreed.

“Yes. Then you would not need darkness to complete your conjugal tryst.”

“Let’s practice,” Wenda said.

They took off their shoes and became apparent troll and ogress. Wenda squinted, trying to see Princess Ida instead of the ogress, but it was difficult.

“What is going on?” Meryl asked.

“We are practicing reversing our seeing,” Wenda said. “So that we won’t be fooled by this world’s reversals.”

“That makes sense,” Meryl agreed, and touched her tail to the ground. There was the horrendous kraken weed.

“That does make sense,” Hilarion said. He removed his boots and became the ogre. He looked at Ida. “Please do not be offended, but I suspect that if I were really an ogre, you would be beautiful right now.”

“Thank you,” the ogress said, grimacing. Wenda stifled her remark that Ida looked good regardless, for a middle-aged woman. Hilarion had not meant any offense. Men simply were not much for nuances.

Angela dropped down and touched the ground with her substance-less feet. As a demoness she was still pretty, but now in a smoky seductive way, rather than the clean innocent angel way.

Gradually they got the hang of it. The effect was imperfect, but Wenda could see a kind of outline of the true forms of the others within the reversals. It was as though they were wearing horrendous costumes.

Meanwhile Jumper was making his own progress. It was interesting to watch. When he touched the ground as a bare human being, he was a rough ogre. When he changed to spider form, he was a stupid fly. When he became a roc, he looked like a hummingbird. It seemed that the opposite changes were related to the form, not to the person. Wenda was halfway used to seeing Jumper in all his forms, large spider, small spider, and man, so it was not hard to extend it to the opposite forms.

“How are we going to ride on a hummingbird?” Hilarion asked dubiously.

Wenda wondered herself, but decided not to question it. She had a more pressing question to address: exactly where was the Door? Eris had let slip another thought: that they would have trouble finding it. That meant it was not in any obvious place. So their simple tour to the foliage of the planet now seemed unlikely to be effective. But what else could they try? She couldn’t think of anything.

“I have a harness,” Ida said. Where could she have gotten that? She must have a bottomless purse. Literally; with magic it was possible.

Meryl flew toward the Knot, and veered away. “We forgot!” she exclaimed. “Another day has passed, and the malign thing has burned out its clothing.”

They had indeed forgotten, in the distraction of the new world. “There is plenty of reverse wood available,” Wenda said. “But it will take hours to craft the shell.”

“Maybe not,” Angela said. “I spied an old beerbarrel trunk husk. Wouldn’t that do?”

“It might indeed,” Wenda agreed gratefully.

They fetched the barrel and set it over the Knot. The frightening radiation converted to warm appeal. “You’re Heaven-sent!” Hilarion told Angela, who blushed blue.

They fastened the bottom rim of the barrel to the wagon so that it couldn’t blow off in flight. The cargo was ready.

It was time. The Jumper hummingbird had made several takeoffs, loops, and landings, flashing into roc appearance while in the air, and was satisfied with his competence.
I am a roc, even if I don’t look it,
he thought.
You will want to perch on my back.

Wenda found the tip of his spread wing, well away from the apparent hummingbird. He was in effect invisible. She treaded carefully, and the others followed. Meryl and Angela took places also, because a roc’s flight was swifter than either of them could ever manage.

There was indeed a comprehensive harness that fastened securely to the roc’s body. It even had seat belts. No one would be falling off during flight. The harness had become invisible, because it was attached to a bird supposedly the size of a hummingbird. The reversal magic was doing what it could, but Wenda wondered whether its resources were not being strained.

They rolled the wagon with its barrel on, and secured the wheels in place on the harness. It would not roll off.

But it looked strange indeed. They were a collection of people who seemed to be sitting in midair, along with a wagon and a barrel. They retained their normal forms because they were not touching the ground; they were touching Jumper. He was touching the ground, so he was affected; they weren’t.

When they were set, the roc lifted his wings, flapped, and took off. And abruptly appeared in full feather. They were on their way to the foliage section of the planet, for whatever that was worth.

The roc flew higher, much higher, as was the nature of this largest of all birds. The details of the land fuzzed out with distance. That was probably just as well, since those details were all reversed.

Nevertheless, Wenda gazed at the scene below. Now she could see that they had been on the thick solid trunk of the tree, and were flying “north” toward the spreading branches and foliage. This business of a tree-shaped planet seemed odd, but pleasant, because she associated with trees. And of course Xanth was a peninsula planet. Most others, she knew, were plain dull round, or, technically, spherical. Ball-shaped. Maybe they had no imagination.

Wenda.

It was the Demoness Eris; she recognized the mind.
I am here,
she thought back.

May we converse?

If you wish.
Why did the Demoness want to waste time on her when Jumper wasn’t watching?

You had a thought last night that I was lacking in tact.

Oh, no! She hadn’t realized Eris was reading her mind then. This was surely mischief.

No mischief. I merely want to know how.

How to explain tact to a being who lacked awareness of many human interactions? What could she do except try to clarify with utter, tactless, candor?

Precisely.

It was that Eris had clarified that she paid Wenda attention only because Jumper was present. Demons generally did not care about the welfare or feelings of mortal folk, yet it was unkind for them to say so openly. But a soulless entity would have no basis to comprehend that.

Error. I inherited half of Jumper’s soul when I married him. He had in turn received portions of the souls of the other members of his Quest. So it is a composite soul, and its nicest component is the part of yours. I am trying to understand it, as it affects me now.

Oh. Of course. Once a Demon received even part of a mortal soul, things like conscience and love became possible.

Yes. But it takes time to become proficient in such things. I am trying, because my half-soul tweaks me when I violate its principles. It tweaked me when I was straightforward with you last night. I want to know why.

That was where tact came in. The Demoness had been brutally candid about Wenda’s place in her esteem. It had set Wenda back, before she reminded herself that this was the nature of Demons, whether big D or little d. A human person would have been more tactful, so as to avoid hurting feelings.

Feelings. There is another mystery. Jumper has feelings for you, and I know from your soul that is now part of mine that you have feelings for him. But since the only use a male has for a female relates to stork summoning, and this is not the interest the two of you share, how is it possible for you to have such feelings?

Suddenly Wenda appreciated the magnitude of the emotional challenge. Feelings between men and women were not limited to storks, though that was very important to men. Jumper saw in Wenda the same things she saw in him: selfless caring, generosity, dedication, commitment, and loyalty. They loved each other in a way that was independent of storks. Wenda was not jealous of Jumper’s relationship with Eris, and he was not jealous of hers with Prince Charming. They understood each other in that respect, including the satisfaction each could get when stork summoning, without having to do it with each other. It was just a small part of their larger friendship.

Friendship.

That was when people knew and respected one another, and truly wanted what was best for the other.

I want that for Jumper.

But Eris wasn’t Jumper’s friend. She was his wife, lover, and protector. That wasn’t the same, though it did not exclude friendship.

Friendship is independent of storks,
Eris repeated from Wenda’s prior thought.
So a way to know if is friendship and not sexual love is to have a relationship that is not sexual.