Knot Gneiss (3 page)

“More outside-box thinking. But also, the swing.”

“The swing? It was dull. No wonder the children did knot bother with it.”

“The swing at your castle is different.”

“It does feel different. But how does that relate?”

“It’s a Mood Swing. It changes your moods every time you swing on it. That’s why you became so changeable.”

Wenda’s pretty mouth dropped open. “That’s why! I never suspected!”

“You hadn’t had experience with regular swings before, so you didn’t know the difference.”

“But that means all I have to dew is knot swing on it. Here I’ve come for an Answer that will cost me a year’s service, when I could have figured it out myself.”

“Yes.”

“But I have knot even asked my Question of the Good Magician yet. I could just go home now, and avoid the service.”

“Yes.”

Wenda looked at her, realizing that something more complicated was afoot. “Yew would never make a mistake like that, Wira. Yew told me deliberately. Why?”

“Because it’s a truly challenging and dangerous mission that only you can accomplish, and it would take you away from your husband for a long time. It seems unfair to inflict it on you, for such a simple Answer.”

“So yew are messing up the Good Magician’s plan? I dew knot believe that either.”

“He told me to tell you,” Wira confessed.

“Why?”

“Because this mission has to be voluntary. You have to want to do it, and nobody with any sense would want to. So you are free to go home now.”

That was too much for Wenda to assimilate at the moment, so she reverted to the subject. “And the third Challenge?”

“That relates to your developing talent, which makes you uniquely qualified for this particular mission.”

“
What
talent?”

“The talent of working with reverse wood.”

“But all I did was sort through the chips and find the one the Pole Cat needed. I understand wood, having derived from wood myself.”

“No.”

Surprised, Wenda looked at her. “I dew knot think I’ve ever heard you say that word before.”

Wira laughed. “You do understand wood, and that’s important. But you did not merely sort the chips. Every chip of reverse wood has the capacity to reverse several ways. You fixed that selection, locking that chip into the manner you desired. That’s your magic: to guide reverse wood. When you did that, we knew you qualified.”

“Qualified for what?”

“The Good Magician will tell you. Remember, you have the right to decline. I recommend that you do.”

Wenda shook her head. “I dew knot think that would bee fair. Yew gave me my Answer.”

“Well, listen to what he says, then decide.”

“I will dew that,” Wenda agreed.

They entered the Castle Proper and came to a central courtyard. There was a lovely woman in overalls and gloves, with a bandanna on her hair. She wore a necklace of Rose quartz, with the quartz-sized beads alternating with pintz-sized beads. She was evidently the Magician’s Designated Wife of the month. He had five and a half wives, but wasn’t allowed to have more than one with him at a time, so they took monthly turns. “Rose of Roogna, this is Wenda Woodwife Charming,” Wira said.

“Oh, I’m delighted to meet you,” Rose said. “You surely understand plants.”

“I understand wood, anyway,” Wenda agreed cautiously. “And many of the plants of the forest.” She had heard of Rose, who had lived for centuries in Castle Roogna, until marrying the Good Magician. She grew magic roses.

“That should be close enough. My world is roses, but I have encountered one I do not understand. Maybe you can help.”

“I doubt I could tell yew anything about roses.”

“Oh, I simply love the way you speak! It’s so woodsy. Here is the rose.” She showed a lovely plant with a single large red rose with blue polka dots. “I received it from a goblin who found it deep underground. I can’t make it grow, and fear it will die before I can clone it.”

Wenda saw the problem instantly. “That’s knot a rose,” she said. “It’s carved wood, magically animated to resemble a rose.”

“Oh!” Rose exclaimed, amazed. “It certainly fooled me.”

“I think there’s an acceptance spell on it, so that people are dissuaded from questioning it. But I can knot be fooled by wood. That’s cut wood, so it will never grow. That goblin is playing an unkind joke on yew.”

Rose considered. “Goblins do malicious things. I should have realized. Thank you, dear. I hope my husband can help you as much as you have helped me.”

Wira reappeared, which was mildly startling because Wenda had not realized she had departed. “The Good Magician will see you now.”

Wenda followed Wira up the dark winding stone stairway to the Good Magician’s dingy office. “Good Magician, here is Princess Wenda Woodwife Charming.”

The gnomelike figure looked grudgingly up from his huge tome. “Thank you, Wira.” Then he focused on Wenda. “What, back again, wood nymph?”

Wenda smiled. He was having his little joke. “Yew saw me coming, Magician. Yew even gave me my Answer in advance, so I could escape the year’s service. Yew surely have a reason, unless yew are becoming forgetful in yewr dotage.”

He did something astonishing. He laughed. Then he got serious. “The service is to fetch an object and bring it here. Unfortunately it is a difficult object that others can’t readily handle. You will find it a challenge too. It is too bad we don’t have the man with the talent of Ease.”

“Ease?”

“Anything he tried became easy. But we had nothing for him, and let him go. Then we learned of this difficult chore. I do not like to admit mistakes, but that was a bad one. He could have fetched the object without difficulty. It will not be easy for you, but it will be possible.”

Wenda was cautious, having been forewarned. “What kind of object?”

“It is a knot of petrified reverse wood, buried for centuries, that was exposed when a new crack opened from the Gap Chasm. It terrifies anyone who approaches it. It must be taken to safekeeping before it falls into the wrong hands.”

Naturally petrified wood would frighten people. “But if no one dares approach it, how can wrong hands get it? And what could they dew with it?”

“Goblins could rope it from a distance, or drop stones on it to chip flakes away, which they could carry at the ends of long poles, and fling into neighboring villages to terrify the inhabitants, making them easy to rob, rape, or kill.”

“How could I approach it, to carry it? I am knot brave. I wood bee as frightened as anyone.”

“Not so. I remind you that this is petrified reverse wood. It has changed its nature, and now frightens rather than reverses, but you would relate to its fundamental nature. It will not affect you.”

“Oh. Then I could carry it quickly here, before the goblins learn of it.”

“No.”

“I dew knot understand. Why woodn’t I carry it?”

“Because it weighs, in Mundane terms, about a hundred and fifty pounds. You could not lift it, let alone carry it. You will have to use a wagon.”

She was beginning to get a notion of the challenge of it. “Still, if I had a wagon—”

“The intervening terrain is rough. You would have to navigate the wagon through the Gap Chasm, bring it to ground level, then haul it through trackless jungle. Goblins and others would catch on long before you completed the mission.”

Wenda made a sudden decision. “I’ll dew it. Give me the wagon and the address.”

“You are aware that you don’t actually have to do it? You haven’t asked your Question, and I have not Answered.”

“It needs to bee done.”

“Then we shall have to do something about your accent, so you can be anonymous. Wira will delve in the cellar and give you a potion to eliminate it.”

“A potion will dew that?”

“Yes. It will cause you to say ‘do’ instead of ‘dew,’ for example. We got it from a couple who needed a favor, GenEric and GenErica.”

“Who?”

“A boy and girl who had the talent of substituting things that would still do the job. In this case, it will make you substitute other words that will suffice, even though they are not the original ones.”

“Substitutions will make me anonymous?”

“Yes, essentially. Your forest accent is a giveaway to your nature. Then no one need know your identity, unless you tell them.”

“But why wood I need to bee anonymous? I am already thoroughly unknown.”

“Less so than you might think. For one thing, you’re a princess, ever since you married Prince Charming. People notice princesses. For another, you were part of the party that repaired the gravity cable from Mundania. There are those who remember. For this purpose, you must become an anonymous protagonist.”

“A what?”

“A person at the center of a narrative. A viewpoint character. One who sees what is happening, without necessarily governing it.”

That was still too complicated for her to comprehend. But at that point Wira reappeared. “Here is the potion.”

Wenda didn’t wait. She took it and drank it. It tasted like thickened water, and had no apparent effect. “I do not think it’s working,” she said. Then paused, startled. Then tried again, using more of her words. “I would not do that to you. It would not be fair.”

The Good Magician nodded. She was ready for the mission. At least in this respect.

2

C
OMPANIONS

Wenda petaled her bike along the enchanted path toward the dread Gap Chasm. She had a compass the Good Magician had lent her that pointed toward the Knot. She planned to go find it, then decide how to move it. The Good Magician said the wagon would be there when she needed it, and she trusted that.

Several people came running toward her, along the path. She drew the bicycle aside to let them pass. They looked distressed, as if fleeing something. But what would they have to flee, on an enchanted path? It was guaranteed safe.

So she asked a woman as she ran by. “What are you running from?” It still surprised her to hear herself say “you” instead of “yew.”

“The flees!” the woman gasped as she fled onward.

This did not seem to make a lot of sense. “What are you running to?” she asked the next man.

“The Isle of Cats and Dogs,” he puffed as he went by.

This still did not clarify it much.

“What’s at the Isle of Cats and Dogs?” she asked the next person.

“Flee bags!” she responded in the breeze of her passage.

Wenda finally put it together. Flees must be bugs that made people run away, even if there was no life-threatening danger, and they could be stopped by flee bags. It was another of the dreadful puns Xanth was made of.

She resumed progress. Soon she came to a sign saying
BEWARE OF BARES
. Surely that should be spelled BEARS?

She rode on. The path led to a village where everyone seemed to be bare. It was a nudist colony! No wonder there was a warning. The Adult Conspiracy prevented children from seeing unclothed people, so the sign was there to warn them. It wasn’t a physical danger, so the path’s enchantment did not bar it. Wenda wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with a child seeing a bare person, but of course the Adult Conspiracy did not consult with ignorant nymphs like her.

In due course she reached the brink of the Gap Chasm. It was every bit as impressive and intimidating as she remembered. The path went up to the very verge of the brink and stopped. She knew there was an invisible bridge continuing on across the gulf, but she couldn’t see it. In any event, she didn’t want the bridge; she needed to go down inside the chasm to find and fetch the Knot.

And suddenly it struck her, not physically—she was after all still on the enchanted path—but emotionally. What had she gotten herself into? How could she ever tote a boulder of virtual stone that weighed more than she did up out of the awesome gulf? Without anyone else knowing? It was impossible! Whatever had she been thinking of, when she volunteered to do this? She was plainly incompetent. She knew she would mess it up badly if she even tried.

There was only one thing to do: go back and tell the Good Magician she had changed her mind. Or at least realized her limitation. He would have to get someone else to do it, someone with the necessary guts and muscle.

She turned the bike around and started back. Only at this point did she see the dark floating blob of fog that had surely been following her. Fracto! Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the worst of clouds, always looking to rain on someone’s parade. He must have thought to catch her just as she climbed laboriously down into the Gap Chasm, so he could drench her when she was helpless. She had run afoul of him before.

The moment Fracto saw that she saw him, he puffed up hugely and intensified. He sent a cold wet draft of wind down at her. He was angry that she had spied him before he could spring his trap, so now he was going to really soak her. She had to get under cover in a hurry.

She rode the bike as fast as she possibly could, zooming down the path right toward the cloud. There was a campground not far along; she had passed it not long ago.

The storm moved to intercept her, gusting low. This was going to be close. She ducked her head and forged through the early winds, trying to win through before the rain came.

She almost made it. She saw the camp, and its covered shelter, and zoomed right at it without slowing. But the rain caught her just before she got there. In a quarter of a moment she was drenched, her clothing plastered to her body.

She reached the shelter and jammed on the brakes, but they were wet and slipped, and a mean gust of wind whipped her skirt up almost over her head, exposing her panties, and pushed her forward. She veered away before she crashed, lost control, and skidded into the side of the shelter. “Oh!” she cried as she landed. The bicycle slid on past, dumping her unceremoniously by the shelter. She couldn’t even see, because there was splash in her eyes.

Then hands were on her, helping her get under cover. Who was it? She hadn’t seen anyone. Suppose it was a man, seeing her in such soaking dishabille? What mortification!

“You’re safe now,” a dulcet voice said. “But I fear you have some scratches.”