First things first. What was the nature of this cabinet? She opened its door and found it filled with little curled bits of metal. "Metal filings," she said. "A filing cabinet!"
But it did not disappear. The filings arranged themselves along its walls, but that was all. It was tall and narrow and in her way.
Then she got the rest of it. "People have to go through this single file," she said. "Filing through the cabinet." She stepped into it, turning sidewise to fit, and through it. When she looked back, it was gone. She had gotten the rest of the pun.
And how many more to fathom? Sooner or later she would encounter one she couldn't figure out, and then she'd be balked. So rather than run that line, she should stop now and figure out the larger riddle: how to abolish the comic strip itself.
Comic Strip. A strip of supposedly funny things, comics. But could there be another interpretation, as with the filing cabinet? Not just something to name, but something to do? Comic Strip--strip comic?
Oh, no! She hated that. But it did fit. It was probably calculated to repel her, just as Karia had been repelled by the puns. So she probably had to do it.
She faced ahead without moving. "I am not pretty. It would be ludicrous for me to take off my clothes. In fact it would be comical. So here is my comic strip."
She gritted her teeth and took off her shirt. Then she took off her shoes. Then she grimaced and took hold of her skirt.
The closed-in Comic Strip faded out. She stood on the open drawbridge. No barriers remained between her and the inner bank of the moat. And she hadn't even needed to strip all the way. She had gone far enough to make her point, and that had been enough.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief and put her shirt back on, and her shoes. Then she walked on across the moat. She had won a small victory; still, she wished she could have a body that was stunning when bared, instead of comical.
The drawbridge ended at a large drooping tree. No, not exactly a tree; a portcullis whose metallic spikes resembled branches. Maybe a gate decorated to resemble a tree. Whatever it was, it blocked the way; she could see between the bars to a hall leading into the castle. This was obviously the second Challenge.
The portcullis looked too heavy to lift clear, but assumptions were risky, so she put her hands on two of the bars and heaved upward. They did not budge. "Darn!"
"You swore at me!" a female voice cried, and water dripped down the branches.
Startled, Cube stepped back and looked up. There was a face in the upper foliage, vaguely human, but much larger than any person. A woman's countenance, with flowing green hair and huge liquid eyes.
"You're a person!" Cube exclaimed, astonished.
"I'm a willow tree," the face replied. "Forced to remain here unhappily until I am able to smile. Only then will I be freed from this horrible bondage."
"You're not here by choice? That's awful."
"It's unbearably sad," the tree agreed, and tears fairly cascaded from her eyes, wetting the rest of her substance like falling rain. "It makes me so unhappy that I know I'll never be free."
"I wish I could make you happy," Cube said.
"Well, there is one way."
"What is that?"
"Take my place."
Cube recoiled. She was not about to fall into this trap! "You're here as a Challenge I have to pass. I'm not supposed to do your job, I'm supposed to get by you."
"Oooo!" the face wailed, and the tears flowed so copiously that they started to pool on the floor.
Cube felt sorry for the weeping willow, but her sympathy was tempered by her knowledge that the tree's fate was not permanent. She was surely serving her year for an Answer. The tears were probably fake.
Still, it was a Challenge. She had to find a way past this unhappy barrier. The tree had told her that she would be free once she was able to smile, so the challenge might be to make her smile. But how could she do that? The tree would probably meet her every effort with a further deluge of tears.
Well, she had to try. "Would you like a gift?"
The flow eased. "A gift? What?"
"A rear-view mirror." Maybe when the willow got the pun, she would laugh, or at least let a smile out. Then she would depart, and the way would be clear.
"But I look awful," the tree protested. "Almost as bad as you do."
Cube could have done without that last remark. But she ignored it and brought out the mirror. "It will surprise you. Hold it up and take a look."
A branch creaked forward, with twigs like fingers. It took the mirror. The willow held it up before her expansive face. "But this is not my visage!"
"Yes it is. It's your other side."
"Oh, my trunk. Now I understand. This is very nice."
"Your rear view."
"Yes. Thank you. You are so kind, I really hate to stop you from entering the castle." The tears resumed.
So much for humor. The pun had fallen entirely flat.
Cube pondered. The first Challenge had been deceptive. There had been a seeming way through it, solving pun after pun, but that was not the real way. The real way was to comprehend its basic nature and address that.
So what was the basic nature of this one? It seemed she had to make the weeping willow smile, but that might be impossible. Was there some other avenue?
What about the opposite? Making her cry? That seemed cruel, but maybe it wasn't, since she was a weeper by nature. Maybe her true satisfaction lay in weeping.
Cube braced herself and tried. "I have to agree. Your fate is very sad. It must be terrible to be locked into this abysmal gate with no hope of release."
"Yes, it is very bad," the tree agreed, the tears flowing more copiously.
"Just on and on, crying endlessly, without hope."
"Yes," the tree sobbed. The tears were rushing down, forming a small river at the base that made its way to the moat.
"Nobody ever had a worse fate."
"Nobody," the willow agreed, streaming.
"I don't see how you can stand it."
"I can't stand it!" The water came from her eyes in virtual cataracts, splashing onto the floor in twin waterfalls.
Cataracts. That was an eye condition. Could that be the key?
Cube acted before she could change her mind. She dived into the nearest cataract, desperately swimming upstream. In a moment she found herself being carried along, topsy-turvy, tumbling in the fierce current. She was in a rushing river--and the portcullis was gone.
She had found a way through. Where she was going she didn't know, but she was past the second Challenge.
The river slowed. She looked around, and saw that it was flowing into a larger channel with steep cliffs on the sides. She couldn't get out. There was just one place where the ground was low enough for her to wade out. There was a green tree by it, blocking the way. Well, she would climb through its foliage if she had to.
She splashed up to the bank. Then she recognized the variety of tree. It was a tangle tree.
She stayed in the water, realizing that she had come up against the third Challenge. She had gotten by the weeping willow; now she had to get by a more tough-minded tree. She couldn't swim throughits eye!
While she was hesitating, a green girl walked around the tree. "Get away!" Cube screamed. "That's a tangle tree!"
The girl looked at her, surprised. "You're telling me?"
"Yes! Get away before it grabs you with its tentacles!"
The girl laughed. "Why should it do that?" She caught hold of a trailing tentacle and wrapped it around her body like a scarf.
Cube stared. The tree was not attacking. In fact it was quiescent. Maybe it had just eaten, so was sated, and the girl knew it. In that case, Cube could simply walk by it. Maybe the Challenge was to figure that out, and get up the nerve to do it.
She waded forward.
"I wouldn't," the girl remarked pleasantly.
"But if it's harmless now, I shouldn't wait. It could be hungry again in an hour."
"It's hungry
now."
"But--" Then Cube saw the tips of the tentacles quivering. They were orienting on her, waiting for her to come within reach so they could fling out and snare her. That was how tangle trees operated: they remained still until something came within reach, then they nabbed it and hauled it into the trunk-mouth for chomping.
Yet the girl still wore the tentacle, and it wasn't squeezing her at all. She was twice as delectable as Cube, with much nicer mounds of flesh and no awkward clothing. In fact she was a succulent nymph.
A nymph--or a dryad? Could it be?
"I didn't know tangle trees had dryads," Cube said in wonder.
"Now you do," the dryad said.
"But what do you do for the tree? It eats human flesh."
"Come within reach and I'll show you," the dryad said.
Cube knew better. "I'll wait, thanks."
"If you were a man, you wouldn't wait."
"Why not?"
The nymph did a little dance. Her full bare breasts and buttocks bounced, her silken green hair flung about, and she kicked one lovely leg high in the air. High enough to show her panties, if she had been wearing any.
Cube thought about how a man would react to that show. "Oh."
"I have lured many men in to my tree," the dryad confided. "Then I have buried their bones, so as not to alert others. In return my tree protects me and feeds me."
"Feeds you what?" Cube asked, horrified. "Leftovers?"
The girl laughed again, her whole luscious body shaking. "Tangle-fruit." She reached up, and there was a bright red fruit of some kind, looking like a cross between an apple and a cherry. She plucked it, brought it to her dainty mouth, and bit into it. "Delicious. Of course I could have leftover meat if I wanted it."
"How can you betray your own kind like that?"
"What kind? The prey is human; I'm not."
"You look human."
"I need to, to lure in the prey." She did another little dance that was so suggestive that it almost made Cube's eyes glaze, and she was not partial to women in that manner. It would numb a man's dull brain in half an instant.
Here she was talking, when she needed to get past the tree. How could she do that? Then she had a bright idea.
"You have an idea," the dryad said. "I saw the bulb flash over your dull head."
Dideveryone have to insult her appearance? "I have a gift for you."
The dryad clapped her hands with girlish glee. "I love gifts!"
"A rear-view mirror." Cube brought it out, as it had returned to her in the interim since the second Challenge. "I will toss it to you."
She tossed, but her aim was bad and it flew high. The tangle tree snapped out a tentacle and caught it, then gave it to the dryad. "Thank you," she said sweetly. Cube wasn't sure whether the nymph was addressing her or the tree.
The dryad held the mirror up to her face. "Oh what a divine derriere!"
"It's yours," Cube said.
"Why so it is. I love it." She switched her hips, making her cute bottom swing. There went another man, if he had been watching, Cube knew. If only she had a bottom like that! But of course that was why she was here: to get such a bottom, and all the rest.
The nymph gave the mirror to a tentacle. "Save this for me, dear," she said, and the tentacle carried it away to disappear in the foliage.
Then the nymph looked at Cube. "But this doesn't mean I'll let you pass by my tree."
"I didn't think it did," Cube said. But she was sure that the dryad was the key to passage, and that there was some kind of price that would persuade her. If the nymph told the tree to let a person pass, it surely would. But how could she persuade the nymph? What could such a creature want?
She pondered, and slowly a grudging idea came to her. "How are you fixed for companionship, aside from the tree?"
The dryad didn't answer. That might be significant, because she had had an answer for everything else.
"How is your social life? Do you have a boyfriend?"
Still no answer. That meant she was on the right track.
"You know you can't have a boyfriend if you feed all the good men to the tree. You're going to have to make an exception."
"I can make an exception," the dryad murmured. "For the right man."
Ha. "And who is the right man?"
"Conun," the dryad whispered.
"Conan? What would you want with a barbarian?"
"CoNUN, with the accent on the second syllable. He's no barbarian. He's a drummer. He has such a divine beat." She gazed dreamily upward. "But he won't even look at me; I could win him if he did. He is another person doing service for the Good Magician, and no girl can win him unless she solves his riddle. I'm not good at riddles."
Cube believed that. Nymphs were famous for their bodies, not their minds. "Suppose I solve his riddle, and tell you? Would that earn me safe passage by the tree?"
"Yes," the dryad whispered.
This seemed suspiciously easy. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. The Good Magician wants to know whether you can relate well to people, even if they make you look even uglier than you are, and you have found my weakness."
That was surely a good deal more than the nymph was supposed to say, but again, nymphs' assets were on their bottoms, not their heads. "Where is Conun?"
"Next station downstream."
"I'll be back." Cube let herself drift with the current. She was sure there would be no exit from the river there, but if she fathomed the man's riddle, she could pass the tree.
Sure enough, the cliffs confining the river returned. A short way down there was a ledge cut into a cliff, and on it sat a handsome man with a big bold drum. "Hello, Conun!" Cube called.
Conun eyed her appraisingly. "I am looking for a girlfriend, but you are not what I have in mind."
Of course not. No man had her in mind. "But if I fathom your riddle, and prove it, you'll be mine regardless."
Conun winced. "I hope you don't." Then he beat on his drum, the loud sound making ripples on the river.
Conun drumming. Suddenly she had it. Fortunately he wasn't looking her way--few men ever did--so didn't see the bulb flash over her head. She waded and swam back up to the tangle tree stop.
The dryad was waiting. "What's your news?"
"I fathomed it. Conun is a drummer. Conun drums. Conundrum. That's a riddle, a play on words, a pun. That's the pun: What is Conun drum? He is a conundrum. Tell him that, and he is yours. He has no choice."
"Oh, goody!" The nymph clapped her cute little hands again. "You wait here." She dived into the water.
"But--" But the nymph was gone. Cube hadn't realized that she could leave her tree.
She waited. In two and a half moments there was an exclamation downstream, followed by what sounded like a loud kiss. "Let her pass!" the dryad's voice came.
That must be an order to the tree. Cube waded out of the water and approached the tree somewhat nervously. If she had misunderstood--
But the tentacles were parting, revealing a path to the other side. Cube walked along it, passing through an arcade of green tentacles. The tree could grab her now, if it wanted to. But it didn't, and in barely over another moment she was out the other side. She heaved a silent sigh of relief. She had passed the third Challenge.
She discovered she was in the entrance hall of the castle, soaking wet. A somewhat drab woman was hurrying toward her. "Don't wet the floor!" the woman cried.
Cube stopped. "The Challenges--the river--"
"The ladies' room is right here," the woman said, showing her a door. "Clean up and change there."
Bemused, Cube opened the door and entered the room. There was a basin and sponge, and a dry dress hung beside them. There was also a set of sheer stockings, and a silken bra and panty. Much nicer things than she had worn before. So she got out of her sopping clothing, sponged herself clean, put on the nice clothing except for the stockings, and transferred her things to the new outfit. Her things included the rear-view mirror and the w
ater ball, which had somehow survived the river without dissolving. She gazed at the stockings; she had never worn such things before, but they were evidently for her use, and maybe were part of the required apparel for meeting the Good Magician. So she pulled them on, and was pleasantly surprised when they made her legs look nice. Too bad she couldn't wear a stocking over her head! She combed her hair without trying to use the mirror, and stepped back out into the hall.
A young woman was waiting there. "Hello, Cube. I am Wira, the Good Magician's daughter-in-law. He will see you now."
"That's good. Uh, who was the other woman?"
"She is Sofia Socksorter, the Magician's Designated Wife of the Month. She is very careful about keeping clothing in order, especially socks."
"I noticed." Cube followed Wira down the hall, through a chamber or two, and up a winding flight of steps. "Would you like a mirror?"
"Thank you, no. I could not use it."
"Why not?"
"I am blind."
Cube was astonished. "But you're showing me the way!"
"I am familiar with the castle."
Oh. Cube wasn't sure what to say, so said nothing. She wished she could apologize for her offer of the mirror, but that would only make it worse.
They came to a dingy little study lined with books and potion bottles. Inside was a gnomish man hunched over a huge tome. "Good Magician, here is the querent Cube."
The man looked up. He almost smiled as he saw Wira, then remembered himself and resumed his etched frown. "Ask."
"How can I be beautiful?"
There was a long pause, at least two moments and a trice. Cube was afraid he wouldn't answer, but then he did. "You must travel the Cube Route."
"Cube? That's my name!"
"Your name is Cue. Complete the Cube Route and you will be beautiful."
And there it was: the way to become beautiful! "Thank you, Good Magician! Now what is my Service?"
"That is it."
"To go where I will be beautiful? I don't understand."
The Magician sighed. "I see I must explain." It was clear that he disliked explaining. "Xanth recently came into some additional territory of the contra-terrene persuasion. There are those who wish to explore and colonize it, but they do not know a safe route there or how to handle its special nature. You will gather assistants and find that route and fathom that land's nature. Once you have established it, others will be able to follow, and you will be free to enjoy your considerable beauty. Limit your party to nine: no more, no less. Each person in your party will be appropriately rewarded, in due course. Now be on your way."