“This is working,” she said. “But I think not well enough. Let's see if we can get closer.” She put a hand on his hand.
“But—”
“I'm not trying to vamp you, at the moment. I just think that I may be able to pick up some of your impressions from the reactions of your body, and that may help me get them right without as much verbal correction. I want to try to bypass my instincts, because they keep revising the images; maybe if I can attune more closely to yours, it will come out right. Illusion is my business; I'm good at it, when I can do it straight.”
They continued to work on it, and to Gary's surprise she was right. She was more than good at it; she was a genius of illusion. The miscues became fewer and finally disappeared. Every part of what she showed was authentic in image, and was responsive to his corrections. When he described a day passing, the shadows moved across it as they had in life. When he described a season passing, the trees dropped their leaves and then sprouted new ones. When it rained, and temporary streams flowed, they appeared in the scene in fully animate manner. There were aspects of illusion he had not appreciated before, such as a thin screen that gave him a translucent map-image of the scene overlying the stone, without obscuring it. He no longer had to keep looking at the illusions to correct the errors; he focused entirely on the pebble, telling what he saw in a general way, and it took form around them complete with most of its details. Sometimes a tiny illusion image of Iris herself appeared, pointing to one aspect of the scene or another, so that he was able to direct her the right way. They were making an increasingly effective team. He had not liked Iris much, but now he was coming to appreciate her better; she could do good work when she made the effort.
As last he looked up, disconnecting himself from his reverie of the stone—but the illusion image remained in all its detail. “This is good,” he said. “If we find the right stone, we can re-create history itself.”
Iris smiled. “Yes, I think we can. You have a marvelous ability to fathom the secrets of stone.”
Gary discovered that his tacit dislike of her was fading.
She had clothed their surroundings with illusion, but left herself as she was: a well constructed young, mature human woman. He was beginning to see the appeal.
D. Mentia appeared. “They have found a good stone, we think,” she announced. “It sits high enough to survey the entire plain, everything within the ring of hills. They are making scaffolding so you can get up to read it all.”
“Oh, did they find fallen timbers for construction?” Iris asked as they set off for the site.
“No, Surprise made them, and nylon cord for the lashings. Hiatus has a notion how to construct such things, it seems.”
“What is nylon?” Gary asked.
“It is something they make from stockings taken from nymphs,” Mentia explained. “You know: NYmph plus LONg legs, one of their salient attributes. It's why they run so well, and have such attractive legs.” She formed into a slender-legged nymph as she spoke. “Sometimes the stockings even run by themselves, but that is frowned on, folk prefer them without runs. The stockings are twisted up so tightly that they form a strong cord. They link them together, and have as long and supple a cord as is needed.
I understand that if they squeeze the stockings together tightly enough, they form a tough, solid mass. All derived from that magic intended for the nymphly legs.”
“Amazing. How do they catch the nymphs, to take their stockings?”
“I'm not sure. It must be hard to do, because normally they are able to run teasingly close but always just out of reach of the pursuing men. Only fauns can catch them regularly, and that's because the fauns are really their kind, and have goat feet to make them faster. The nymphs don't really try to get away from them. So maybe someone bribes fauns to get the stockings.”
“I could use a pair of those stockings myself,” Iris remarked. “So that I won't have to use illusion on my legs as I grow older. Is there anything similar for the upper portion of the body?”
But she didn't get an answer, because they had arrived at the site. There was the largest standing stone yet, towering despite being hinged. There was now scaffolding around it, and a wooden ladder, so that Gary could climb to a wooden platform circling the top of the stone. They had done a nice job.
“So tell them,” Mentia murmured.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Gary asked.
“Common sense, something I now have too much of. It also tells me that folk are happier and more cooperative when complimented on their achievements.”
That hadn't occurred to him. But he was coming to respect her judgment as it existed here in the madness. So he tried it. “Hiatus and Surprise, that is a very nice job you have done. It will be ideal for my purpose.”
The result was impressive. The man smiled so broadly that his mouth threatened to emulate the demoness' trick of extending beyond the limits of his face, and the child sank blissfully backwards onto a small pink cloud shaped like the number 9 which then floated gently in a circle. It seemed that they did appreciate the compliment.
Gary realized that he had also inadvertently complimented the Sorceress Iris before about her facility with illusion, and she had complimented him about his ability with stone, and he had felt quite positive thereafter and disliked her less. This was an interesting form of magic, that apparently the madness did not interfere with. He would try to remember that, as magic that anyone could do was rare.
It occurred to him that if the stone had been hinged to be upright during its heyday, he might get most of what he needed right at ground level, reading the second stone. But that could wait, lest it seem that he did not properly appreciate the scaffold. So he climbed the ladder to the platform, and Iris followed. Soon all of them were up there, enjoying it. Indeed, the view from up here was good; he could see the entire plain without difficulty, and the ring shape of the mountains was clear. Now he saw how many of the standing stones there were; they were scattered throughout the region more abundantly than he had realized while trying ineffectively to search the ground for the philter. What a city this must have been!
Gary picked a spot on the stone at random and refocused his eyes. He found the range quickly, now that he had practiced with his human eyeballs, and the pictures leaped into sight. They were of the bleak surroundings, but those merely overlaid the earlier impressions. He plunged right through to the very first ones, when the stone was erected and shown the light of day on this site.
The first pictures were fragmentary, seeming to relate to the quarrying and shaping and moving of the stone. It took awhile for a stone picture to form, and when a person was in view only briefly, the image was blurred or ghostly.
When a scene was steady, as was the case with features of the surrounding landscape, it became clear. In any event, the quarrying wasn't important; it was the living city he needed to see.
But the stone turned out to be a foundation; it was covered by other stones and by wood, so offered no good visions. Until it was abruptly uncovered by fleeting ghost figures, at the time the building was hinged down and deserted. Thereafter there was only the view that existed at present, only with most of the folded buildings still erect.
“This stone doesn't offer what we want,” Gary said regretfully. “It was covered while the building was active, and must have been one of the last to be shut down, so that it didn't see the active city.”
“Then we must find a better stone,” Mentia said sensibly.
“But I hate to see all this work on the scaffolding wasted.”
“We can move it,” Hiatus said. “We made it to be readily taken apart and reassembled.”
They dismounted from the platform and took it apart.
Mentia had spied a double-hinged stone that seemed to start with a massive foundation, continue with a folded down upper segment, and finish with a folded-up spire.
“This wasn't a building,” she said. “This was a steeple. It should have
had a good view of the city from its point.”
Gary agreed. They set up the scaffolding and climbed to the platform, as before. Now he examined the blunt tip of the spire.
“Oh, my!” he breathed, awed.
“Tell me!” Iris said urgently. “Let me animate it.” Her illusion screen appeared, ready to respond to his words and reactions.
Gary began talking. “I see a city being constructed, so vast it fills the entire plain within the ring of mountains, so new it shines in the sunlight, so intricate it is like nothing Xanth has known since. It is as if every building is a palace, and on the distant hills are castles linked by walls of such magnitude that they seem like mountains….”
The illusion took shape, first on the screen between him and the surface of the stone, where he could readily correct it and amend it, then beyond, where everyone could see it. There was a murmur of awe that echoed his own as Hiatus, Surprise, and Mentia saw a wedge of the great city of the distant past take shape around them. It might be illusion, but it was patterned on the reality of long ago.
Gary walked slowly around the stone, reading the rock pictures as he did—and as he did, the illusion city spread out in other directions, as seen by the stone that faced that way. When he completed his circuit, there was a complete ancient city around them, maintained in illusion though Gary could no longer look at the images on the far side.
Iris' talent provided a stability that his eyes alone lacked; she could hold the image once it had been evoked.
“Now the other three of us must search the city to see who has the philter and where he put it,” Mentia murmured. “We will not be able to touch anything, but we can see everything. See, the illusion is three-dimensional; we can look at the far sides of buildings.”
“Not if we stay up here, we can't,” Hiatus said.
“Then we shall go down to the ground. But be cautious, because the illusion city is covering up the real things, and we can stumble into them. We must remain aware that what we see is not what is there today.”
“Can you feel the way for us?” Hiatus asked. “Guide us so that we can look without stumbling and hurting ourselves?”
“Why yes; that's a good idea. I will become a fog and touch the ground ahead of you. I will make a green stripe where it is safe for you to walk.”
There were the sounds of their descent to the ground.
Then Gary and Iris were alone, working on the image.
Gary was still examining it, concentrating on one detail and then another, and as he did so. Iris clarified the illusion image to match. The buildings which had been shown in general outline became more specific.
“These buildings are hollow!” Surprise cried from below.
“Oops,” Gary said. “I should have realized that the stone can see only what is in its line of sight. Whatever was never in its sight remains blank.”
“But once we have what this stone offers,” Iris said, “we can go to other stones and get other views. We can make this city whole, in time.”
“But if we take the time to do that, we won't be able to follow it forward in time, to see what happens to the philter.”
“Let's save that until we actually spy the philter,” she said. “Our first priority is to get the most complete replica of the city that we can, so that we don't miss anything.”
She was right. So he worked to complete the description of this region as seen by this stone. Then the two of them went down to the ground and through the illusion, following a green stripe. Sure enough, the buildings were hollow—but it was comparatively easy to fill them in from the spot viewpoints of other stones. It was not necessary to climb them; for this limited purpose the ground views sufficed. It was merely necessary to find projections on the stones that had not been covered by paneling or paint. The views were limited, but adequate.
They worked in their separate fashions all day: Gary reading one stone after another. Iris building the most phenomenal structure of illusion of her old/young life. Hiatus and Surprise eagerly searching every street and building that was sufficiently defined, and Mentia coordinating and guiding all of them. But by the end of the day they knew two things: they had not gotten even a glimmer of the philter, and they were ravenous.
“There aren't any people,” Hiatus complained. “We can't see what they're doing, only what they've done.”
Gary explained about the need for people to stay in the vicinity of the stone for long enough to make an impression. “Rock pictures usually aren't very good for animate creatures. I might evoke some if I concentrated on exceedingly fine definition, but that would take time and probably wouldn't be as good as the larger view is.”
“Let's not bother with that for now,” Mentia said.
“When we find a really promising area, then we can do the fine focus. There's no point in wasting the effort randomly.”
“I hate to shut down this magnificent restoration after we have made it,” Gary said. “But we must rest and sleep.”
“I can maintain it,” Iris said.
“What, even while you sleep?” he asked, amazed.
“I told you I was good at illusion. Once I have crafted it, I can maintain it with minimal effort.”
He shook his human head. “I think I never understood before the power of a Sorceress. I never imagined such a thing.”
“Thank you.”
“What are you mortals going to eat tonight?” Mentia asked. “We have already foraged for most of the berries and things that grew in this wasteland.”
“Eat!” Surprise said, crossing her eyes. Suddenly a barrel of fish livers appeared. It smelled awful. The little girl stared at it, appalled. “But I tried to conjure a huge chocolate layer cake!” she said. “Not codfish! I hate cod liver oil!”
“Your magic got twisted again,” Mentia said.
“I'll get rid of it!”
“No!” Mentia said. “Keep it. It is good food for you, and the next thing you conjure might be worse.”
“Yuck!” Surprise cried in true child fashion.
The demoness turned to Iris. “Can you spare some illusion for this without losing the city?”
“Some,” Iris agreed cautiously.
“Can you make these fish livers look, feel, and taste like chocolate layercake?”
“Yes, I can do that much.” Iris glanced at the barrel, and it became a giant cake overflowing with chocolate icing. It looked and smelled as good as the fish livers were awful.
“Wow!” Surprise cried, delighted. “Your magic is pretty good.”
“Thank you, dear,” Iris said wryly.
Iris made an illusion pavilion for them all, under the shelter of stones that were hinged in an A formation. They gathered dry grass and leaves for beds, and these seemed to become downy mattresses. They slept in comfort, each in his or her own chamber.
At least Gary assumed that the others did. He found himself beset by a growing apprehension, not of something wrong or threatening, just confusing. His dreams got downright weird. He remembered the constellations that had become animated, and feared that they were doing it again. Fortunately the Sorceress' illusion dome shielded him from a view of the night sky, and prevented the constellation merman from seeing him. But the weirdness seeped in anyway.
In the morning they held another conference, and concluded that it was after all time to search out the finer detail. “What we really need are to talk to the people of this ancient hinge city,” Mentia said.
“I dreamed I did,” Hiatus said. “I asked a man what the city was called, and he said Hinge. He said that when they shut it down, they called it Un-Hinge. And that strangers called it Stone Hinge.”
“I dreamed too,” Iris said. “But all I saw were odd crossbreed species, like merchickens and micephants. I asked one about that, and it said it was because they couldn't avoid the love spring.”
“I dreamed I was stultifyingly normal,” Surprise said, scowling cutely.
“Fortunately demons don't dream,?
?? Mentia said. “But that animated constellation gives me the creeps.”
That made Gary feel less secure. “I think something is affecting us all,” he said.
“Well of course it is,” Mentia said. “It's the extra wash of madness that flowed through in the night. It's getting to us.”
So they found what seemed to be a significant spot in the city, where ancient metal tracks had crossed by a special stone building, and Gary and Iris concentrated on evoking whatever had been there. They were eager to get this job done before the madness infiltrated their bodies too deeply and affected more than their dreams.
But what Gary found was not a picture of a person or people. It was some sort of huge wagon or vehicle, linked to another like it. In fact there seemed to be a chain of them, each as big and blocky as the next. What could this be?
“A train of thought!” Surprise exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I want to ride on it.”
“That is not the kind of train you can ride on,” Mentia cautioned the child. But then, as the train took shape, she reconsidered. “However, here in the madness, maybe it is possible.”
“It's an illusion train,” Iris reminded them. “An image from the past. All we can do is look at it.”
Nevertheless, as Gary explored its finer detail and Iris improved the picture, it seemed like a very real vehicle.
There was an engine steaming in the distance at one end, seeming as hot as the Gap dragon, and a caboose at the other end, with a red light. In the middle was a chain of wheeled cars with lines of windows.
“This is just like the stories some travelers have told of Mundane trains,” Iris said. “Trent mentioned seeing one, during his exile. Do you suppose that when such trains died, they went to the Region of Madness?”
“It seems possible,” Mentia agreed. “The City of Hinge is a strange place, and so deserves strange vehicles. Perhaps such a train transported the philter somewhere.”