"I could transform a fly to a horse and require it to carry me," Trent replied. "I haven't felt the need, unless you are in a hurry. My rationale is that you need to learn the current ways of Xanth by slow experience, and I can protect you from most hazards as long as we travel together, so time is not of the essence. I must admit, however, that I am enjoying this experience myself, as a reminder of what ordinary life is like for the young. Once I am done with my missions, I will return to my wife and friends, resume my actual age, and we shall fade away as planned. Somehow I feel less urgency about that than I did before."
"I feel similarly little urgency about settling in with strangers," Cynthia agreed. "But of course this is just a diversion from Gloha's mission, so we shouldn't delay her."
"Let's face it," Gloha said. "I'm looking for a male of my own crossbreed species, when as far as I know there isn't one. That suggests that the faster I complete my mission, the sooner I will be disappointed. I'm not in any great rush for that."
"I could transform some other male into a male of your kind," the Magician said. "That may be why Crombie pointed to me. In which case-"
"No!" Gloha cried more sharply than her caring little concern warranted. "It wouldn't be the same. Just the way Braille and Jana didn't want each other transformed. Some other creature wouldn't have grown up as a product of the harpy and goblin cultures, and wouldn't understand what it feels like. I don't want an artificial man." Yet there was a tiny little trace of doubt, for she remembered how comfortable she had felt being a flame vine or a furball or a lung-fish; the sentiments of the species had come with the form. Did she really have a case?
"So it seems that none of us have much motive to hurry," Trent said. "For reasons that are sufficient for ourselves. So we might as well proceed as we have been doing until we have reason to change."
"Yes," Cynthia said. "I feel easier about that."
"So do I," Gloha agreed.
They continued roughly north, because that was the way the best path insisted on going. When anything threatened them, Trent discourage it either by drawing his sword or by transforming it to something harmless.
Then they came to a several-way fork in the path. There was a sign:
DRAW WELL STEPPES PIER COM-PEWTER
"I am getting thirsty," Trent said. "I would be happy to pause for fresh well water."
Cynthia and Gloha agreed. The Magician had conjured watermelons along the way, but they were ready for straight natural water.
They took that path. It led to a round stone structure whose top was a large flat panel. As they approached, a jointed stick unfolded before the panel and made rapid movements.
Trent put his hand on his sword. But the weird thing did not seem threatening. It was just doing its own thing, whatever that was. There was no sign of water:
Then Gloha realized what was happening. "It's, drawing a picture!" she exclaimed.
Indeed, the thing was sketching a picture of the three of them: a human man, a winged centaur filly, and a winged goblin girl. It was an excellent group portrait done in black and white.
"It's a draw well," Cynthia said. "Just as represented."
The appendage caught the edge of the panel, and tore off a sheet of paper. It threw it aside, then commenced drawing Cynthia alone. Apparently it oriented on whoever moved or spoke, and drew a picture of that person. It didn't care what happened to its pictures; it was just interested in drawing them well.
Trent shook his head. "I would have settled for nice cold water."
The appendage ripped off the centaur picture and drew one of Trent drinking a beaded goblet of water. Gloha laughed. So naturally it drew one of her laughing. She salvaged that drawing as it got ripped off.
There was nothing to do but retrace their steps, as the path ended here. They returned to the fork and went along the STEPPES path. "Steppes are broad grassy plains with few trees, easy to travel across," Trent remarked.
But instead the path fed into an isolated mountain completely covered with stairs. Some of them were dainty small, others gigantic huge, and still others were ornate and decorated. "What's this?" Cynthia asked.
Again Gloha figured it out. "The steppes! Many steps."
"Xanth is made mostly of puns," Trent said. "We seem to have walked into a zone of them."
"I don't remember encountering this sort of thing in the North Village," Cynthia said.
Gloha glanced at her paper. She discovered to her surprise that it had changed. It was now a picture of a sleepy dull village.
"This is because the North Village has always been the staidest place in Xanth," Trent explained. "That is why we retired there. It is very conservative, with little humor and not a great amount of imagination. The wild effects are mostly elsewhere. Even Fracto finds it too boring for a storm."
"Fracto?" Cynthia asked.
"Xanth's meanest cloud," Gloha explained. "Wherever folk are having fun, Cumulo Fracto Nimbus goes to drown it out. You don't want to run afoul of him; he's not bright, but he's all wet."
Meanwhile the paper was a picture of a mean-spirited cloud gleefully raining out a picnic.
"I don't suppose that well knew what kind of adventure we're going to be having next," Gloha said.
The picture was of an assemblage of junk in a cave, with a piece of glass projecting from its center. Across the glass was printed the word CURSES.
Trent and Gloha laughed, while Cynthia looked blank. "That's Com-Pewter," Trent told her. "Formerly Xanth's second worst scourge, until Lacuna tricked him into reprogramming as a nice machine. He has the power to change reality in his vicinity. But I really wasn't thinking of going there."
"So we'll have to try the pier next," Gloha said. They returned down the path as the picture was of a lake with a dock. They returned to the fork and took the path labeled PIER. This led to a small lake where there was indeed a dock. But there was something odd about it. It didn't actually enter the water; instead it was along the bank. It was made of boards, and the boards did not lie still; they moved.. One would jump over the others, laying itself down at the head of the line; then another would jump, getting ahead of the first. In fact they were walking by themselves, making their way around the lake.
"That's the first time I've seen a board walk," Trent said wryly. They watched the boards walk until they came to a small river entering the lake. There was a rickety little bridge across it. The boards laid themselves down on this, starting across.
"Get off there!" someone cried. "Shoo! Shoo!" It turned out to be an ugly greenish troll. Trent's hand hovered near his sword again. "We mean no harm," he said. "We are merely looking for a fair way northwest."
The troll's head turned. "I wasn't talking to you," he said. "It's these confounded walking boards. They think they can walk all over everything. I'm trying to protect the bridge from their traffic."
"They don't seem to be doing any harm," Cynthia said.
"Well, they don't actually harm it. But it's my job to keep this bridge clear. Suppose someone came to use it, and it was all cluttered with moving boards? This would make a very bad impression."
"Where does the bridge lead?" Gloha asked.
"Nowhere. It's just there. This is a useless sinecure. But what am I to do? I'm a troll. Trolls guard bridges, and this is mine."
"Perhaps we should introduce ourselves," Trent said. "I am Magician Trent, and these are Cynthia Centaur and Gloha Goblin-Harpy. We are on a quest or two to find compatible situations."
"I am Tristan Troll. I was banished to the sticks after betraying my village. But the sticks turned out to be boards, and now I'm bored stiff."
"Bored with boards," Cynthia said. "I can appreciate that."
"How did you betray your village?" Gloha asked.
"We had a raid on a human village, and I let a little human girl go instead of bringing her in to be boiled for dinner. I was supposed to have a really bad dream for that, but Grace'l Ossein, the walking skeleton, messed it up and got in trouble herself.
It was a bad scene."
"Oh, you are that troll!" Trent said. "My grandson Dolph defended Grace'l in her trial. She was found to be too nice for bad dreams, and she married Marrow Bones."
"Who?" Cynthia asked.
"Another walking skeleton from the realm of bad dreams," Gloha said. "It's a long story. He's a nice person."
"But he must be a dead person!"
"As I said, it's a long story. This is a troll we know of; he's decent, for a troll."
"Things certainly have changed! In my days trolls were all horrible."
"They still are," Gloha said. "Except for Tristan."
"Who was punished for his unbad deed," Trent reminded her. "And the troll tribe was not wrong in doing so, by the standards of its culture."
"Why don't you just walk away from this boring job?" Gloha asked the troll.
"Several reasons. For one thing, the other trolls would catch me and bring me back, or give me an even worse assignment. For another, it isn't easy for a troll to find a job. Bridges are about it. I would expire of boredom if I didn't have something useful to do."
Gloha got a glancing little glimmer of a notion. If this path went nowhere, they would have to take the next one, and fulfill the well's prediction of an encounter with Com Pewter. Meanwhile here was a decent troll with a problem. This might not be coincidence. "What would you do if you had your choice?" she asked Tristan.
"I'd like to get into one of the forward-looking bridge jobs, like information processing," Tristan said. "A bridge to knowledge. But who would pay attention to the mind of a troll?"
"So it's your mind you wish to exercise, rather than your body."
"Who would remain with a troll's body, if he had a choice?" Tristan asked rhetorically. "But of course I'm stuck with the way I am. I'm surprised that you handsome folk are even talking to me."
"Well, we're sort of having an adventure, without being in a hurry to conclude it," Gloha said. "I think we just might be able to do something nice for you."
"Don't risk it!" he said, alarmed. "Favors can become expensive."
"But sometimes worthwhile even in their expense," Trent said, glancing briefly at the two females. "What was that glib little glimmer of a notion I saw flickering through your head, Gloha?"
"That maybe Tristan could work with Com-Pewter. Pewter's supposed to be a clean machine now, and maybe he could use an assistant. Someone interested in his sort of business."
"And we are going to have to take Pewter's path after all," he agreed. "That machine may no longer be evil, but he could still be mischievous. We just might be able to trade favors with him."
"We'd have to do him a favor so he would take Tristan?" Trent smiled. "Pewter would have to do us a favor if we gave him Tristan."
Gloha felt her mouth forming an orotund little O. "Oh," she said.
Trent turned back to the troll. "I am a transformer. I can render you into a different shape. Then we can take you to Com-Pewter and inquire whether he can use an assistant. What form would you like to assume?"
"Oh, anything would do. Even a bug."
"Very well. I shall transform you into a humbug for now, and we can decide on a final form later." He reached toward the troll, and Tristan abruptly became a small bug.
"Now find a suitable place to ride on one of us," Trent said. "And don't fly away, because if we lose you, I will be unable to transform you again."
The bug considered. Then it hummed and flew up and perched on Gloha's hair. "Hhhummmm?" it inquired.
"That's all right," Gloha said. "I don't mind if you ride there, as long as you don't-" She hesitated, not wishing to speak of anything as dirty as bug excretion.
"Nnnummmm!" the bug hummed negatively. It wouldn't do anything like that on such nice hair.
They left the walking boards and returned once more to the fork. This time they took the path leading to Com Pewter.
It turned out to be an enchanted path, leading them almost immediately to the machine's den, though it was supposedly some distance.
But as they approached the entrance to the cave, there was a terrible shaking of the ground. "Eeek!" Cynthia screamed. "A ground quake!"
"No, I think it's the invisible giant," Trent said. "He works for the machine."
Sure enough, a monstrous footprint appeared in the ground nearby, squishing two trees and a boulder into two toothpicks and a grain of sand.
"We're going to get squished into mites!" Gloha cried,
alarmed.
"I don't think so," Trent said. "His purpose is to herd clients into Pewter's cave, in case any should be hesitant. Fly up to the region of his head and tell him we're coming voluntarily."
"But I can't see his head!"
"You don't need to. Fly up until you smell his breath. His head will be in that vicinity."
Gloha flew up. So did Cynthia, who was just about as nervous about the ground near those footprints as Gloha was.
Way up above treetop range they encountered an awful wind. Not only did it blow them off course, it smelled like a wagonload of cabbage that had sickened and died before managing to rot. The humbug on Gloha's head coughed and choked.
"I think we've found his breath," Cynthia gasped, her hair blowing out sideways from her head as if trying to flee the odor. "I'm losing control." She glided erratically away. Fortunately she was able to recover somewhat as she got out of the wind; Gloha saw her gliding safely back down toward the forest.
Gloha nerved herself, held her neat little nose, and flew into the putrid breeze. She had a smaller nose than Cynthia did, so it didn't take in as much of the stench. When she banged into an invisible cable she grabbed onto it. This was a strand of the giant's hair. She worked her way down to an ear. "Hey, don't step on us!" she shouted. "We're coming to see Com-Pewter anyway!"
"OOOOGAA!" the giant responded deafeningly.
"Pump down the volume!" Gloha screamed.
"What did you say?" the giant whispered.
"I said that we're coming to see Com Pewter anyway," she shouted. "So you shouldn't step on us."
"Okay." There was a stir as something huge moved. He was turning his head. "Say, you're a pretty little creature."
"Thank you," she gasped.
"But your nose is swollen."
"That's because I can barely breathe."
"Why is that? Are you ill?"
Gloha pondered perhaps five of her moments, but only a quarter of a giant moment. She decided to tell the truth. "It's your breath," she shouted. "It's awful."
"That's nothing. You should smell my cousin's breath. It can knock over an ogre at fifty paces."
"Well, I'll go away now, so I can recover," Gloha said. But then, so as not to be impolite, she introduced herself. "I'm Gloha Goblin-Harpy."
"I'm Greatbow," he replied. "Nice to meet you."
Gloha couldn't honestly express pleasure at encountering the giant, so she evaded the issue by asking a question. "Why is your cousin's breath so bad?"
"My cousin Graeboe? He's ailing. He has some sickness. He's even turned visible, which means he's not much longer for happy stomping."
"How horrible," Gloha said. "Well, I must be gone." She let herself drop, which wasn't at all difficult at this point. Only when she got down near the trees did her breathing begin to clear. Surely a person could not blame the giants for being as big in odor as they were in person, but the dialogue had been a strain. She had at least accomplished her purpose: the giant was no longer stomping. They should now be able to enter the cave safely.
Cynthia had reached the ground, and joined Trent at the mouth of the cave. "I'm so sorry I couldn't stay up there," Cynthia called as Gloha glided in. "I just couldn't-"
"I understand," Gloha said. "Maybe my experience with goblins and harpies gave me strength to endure it. Or maybe my smallness enabled me to take smaller breaths."
Trent and Cynthia exchanged a generous glance. "Or perhaps your spirit is larger than your body," Trent said. "Shall we tackle the next incidental
challenge?"
Gloha felt a chill, though she had been in a sweat when bathed in the giant's breath. Just how safe was this venture? "I suppose, if there is no other path."
They entered the dark cave. There was just enough light for them to see the one route forward into the mountain. Com Pewter was supposed to be a nice machine now, but his record as an evil machine was much longer, and Gloha had, if not a doubt, certainly a qualm.
They came to a chamber with a collection of junk on the floor. One pane of glass was propped up in the center. WELCOME, USERS appeared on that surface.
Trent strode forward to stand over it. "I am Magician Trent; perhaps you know of me."
YOU CAN'T TRANSFORM INANIMATE CREATURES, the screen said, flickering worriedly.
Trent smiled. "I have not come to quarrel with you, Commie. The only viable path led here, so I thought I would pay you a call. If you don't attempt to change my reality unpleasantly, I won't transform this creature to a sphinx who will sit on you." He indicated Gloha.
AGREED. The screen brightened with surprise. YOU LOOK YOUNG, MAGICIAN.
"Youth elixir subtracted seventy years. I will return to my real age when this mission is done."
WHO ELSE IS WITH YOU?
"Gloha Goblin-Harpy, whom I am helping to find her ideal man. Cynthia Centaur, whom I transformed some time ago, and am now escorting to the single winged centaur family of Xanth. And Tristan Troll, whom I have transformed to a bug."
A BUG! the screen printed, alarmed. DON'T LET IT NEAR MY PROGRAM.
Trent nodded. "As I remember, you have been known to have a problem with a virus. I can appreciate your caution. But I come not to bury you but to do you a favor."
I DON'T BELIEVE IN FAVORS.
Gloha was impressed. It was evident that the machine was quite wary of the Magician, and there were surely very few people or creatures in Xanth who commanded such respect.
"Naturally I expect a return favor," Trent continued smoothly.
OH. NOW YOU ARE MAKING SENSE. WHAT DO YOU WANT?