“Preventing a what?”
“A querent. A person who comes to make a query. That's you.”
“So how do I handle those Challenges?”
“Sorry, that information is beyond my obligation.”
He looked at her, annoyed. Then he realized that that was what she wanted. “Thank you. I appreciate the information. Now I am better prepared to handle the Challenges.”
“Curses,” she muttered. “Foiled again.” She faded out.
He ran along the path, making excellent time. By some process he did not understand, it seemed to be earlier in the day than it had been when he first reached the Gap Chasm, so that he wouldn't need to spend a night halfway there. He wasn't hungry; the dough nut seemed to have fed him for a long time.
Indeed, in the afternoon he reached the Good Magician's castle. This was an appealing edifice, for those who might like that type, with red brick walls, green tiled roofs, and a bright blue moat. In the moat was a peculiar monster. It had the top of a man, and the body of a winged serpent, and it was huge.
There was a drawbridge, and the bridge was in the lowered position, crossing the moat. Somewhat hesitantly, Forrest approached the bridge.
“You'll be sorry,” D. Sire murmured behind him.
“Then go away before you enjoy it too much,” he said shortly, lengthening his stride.
Immediately the moat monster swam toward the bridge. “Come into my grasp, faun face,” he said. “I haven't eaten in days.”
Forrest stopped. The human portion looked fully strong enough to grab him and dispatch him, and the serpent portion looked capable of digesting him. There was no way he could avoid those arms. on the narrow bridge. So this must be a Challenge.
He looked around, but the moat seemed to circle the entire castle. He couldn't try to swim, because the monster would catch him that much easier. How was he going to get past?
A nonchalant man of indifferent persuasion came walking around the moat.
“Do I perceive a problem?” he inquired.
“I am trying to cross the moat without getting grabbed and gobbled by the monster.”
“Now that is a very interesting statement. Why do you wish to do that?”
“Because I need to talk to the Good Magician.”
“Indubitably. Why do you wish to talk with him?”
“I need an Answer to a Problem.”
The man nodded. “Has it occurred to you that you may be misdirecting your energies? You can't change the circumstance, but you can change yourself. Maybe you can solve your problem yourself, just by developing a better attitude.”
Forrest glanced at him. “Who are you?”
“I am the castle psychologist. It is my business to talk to querents and try to enable them to solve their problems the old fashioned way: by themselves.”
“If I could solve it myself, I wouldn't be coming here,” Forrest said shortly.
“Now are you sure of that? Perhaps all you need is an adjustment of attitude.”
Forrest's mood had not been great when he arrived at the castle, and it was deteriorating. “I think all I need is a way across that moat.”
“Why do you feel that way?”
Forrest's ire was approaching the blow-off point. “If you're not going to help, I wish you'd go away so I can concentrate.”
“I think we need to get at the root of your hostility. Did you have bad parenting as a child?”
“I never had parents!” Forrest snapped. “I'm a faun. We all get delivered to the Faun & Nymph Retreat, where we stay until we go.”
”Do you want to talk about it?”
“I, No!”
The psychologist shook his head. “I'm afraid we have a difficult case here. This may require many fifty minute sessions. Why don't you make yourself comfortable, and we shall proceed.”
A bulb flashed over Forrest's head. “You're part of the problem!” he said. “You're another Challenge!”
“By no means. I am a Solution. But you have to be amenable to It. Now I can help you, but you have to really want to change.”
“I don't want to change! I want to get across that moat!”
“This hostility is doing you no good. I won't be able to help you if you don't develop a better attitude.”
Forrest considered. If what the man said was correct, he was a Solution rather than a problem. But how could he help, when he just kept trying to distract Forrest, or to make him give up his quest?
Forrest forced a moderate expression to his face. “Exactly how do you help people?”
“I encourage them to talk about their feelings, in this manner explating them. In the colloquial sense, I am called a shrink: one who shrinks the head, making it intelligible and less burdensome.”
A shrink! Suddenly Forrest saw a possible way. “You know, I have problems. But as you say, they are complicated and will take a long time to shrink. On the other hand,. I suspect that the problems of that moat monster are simpler, and can be shrunk in much less time. Why don't you help him first, so that there won't be a backlog'?”
“Why that is an appealing idea,” the psychologist agreed. He turned to the mer-dragon. “say there-let's talk.”
“What for?” the monster asked.
“I can see that you are troubled. I wish to alleviate your concerns and enable you to feel good about yourself.”
“Of course I'm troubled,” the monster said. “I'm a monster! Have you any idea how dull it gets being confined to a circular moat?”
“Yes, I can appreciate that. But you can't change the moat, you can only change yourself. Perhaps if you developed a better attitude about it, you would feel less troubled.”
“I would?” The monster was interested.
Forrest sat back and watched while the two talked. And as they did, the monster gradually shrank in size. The shrink was doing his job.
“You cunning knave,” Sire murmured behind him. “You figured it out.”
“Well, I didn't want to get shrunk myself,” he agreed, satisfied. “So I thought I'd get the monster shrunk instead.”
When the monster was too small to reach the bridge, Forrest walked across to the castle. He was feeling halfway satisfied.
When he arrived at the inner shore, he discovered a set of metal tracks.
Beyond them was a blank wall. The tracks and wall continued to either side, with no room around them; they marked the only level ground outside the castle.
So he picked a direction at random, and started walking between the tracks. Something swirled before him. “I wouldn't do that, if I were you,” it said. “Fortunately I'm not you.”
“Are you still here, D. Sire?” he inquired irritably.
“I have not yet quite fulfilled my half favor,” she said, taking luscious shape.
He had to stop walking, lest he collide with her form and get pressed in three places again. “Why wouldn't you walk here, if you had the awful misfortune to be me?”
“Because the locomotive is coming, and there's no way to avoid it.”
“Locomotive?” This was a new word to him. “What is that?”
“A great huge enormous giant crazy machine that thunders along these tracks, squashing anything in its path.”
“Oh-like a big dragon?”
“No. More like a train of thought.”
He looked at her. “You can be pretty irritating.”
“It's the flip side of my nature. Those who are most capable of driving a man wild with longing, also are capable of annoying him beyond endurance. I suppose I could demonstrate.” Her clothing began to fuzz.
Forrest closed his eyes to avoid being freaked out by the sight of her underclothing. He knew she had no intention of playing nymph & faun with him; she just wanted to drive him mad with desire. That was how demonesses entertained themselves: tormenting ordinary folk. “So what would you do, in my place?”
“I would get quickly back to the landing area. Very quickly.”
Forrest heard an
ominous rumbling. The tracks were shaking, and giving out sounds of incipient power. He turned, opened his eyes, and saw a bright light in the center of a black blob coming toward him. He ran back toward the bridge as fast as he could.
The blob expanded into a frighteningly large black onrushing machine.
Jets of white steam sprouted from it, and big puffs of roiling smoke poured from a chimney at its top. A piercing whistle came from it.
Forrest dived for the bridge. He rolled and got his hoofs out of the way just as the monster engine thundered across, as Sire had predicted.
He would have been squished flat, if she had not warned him.
“Thank you, demoness,” he said. “You saved me from an uncomfortable experience.”
She appeared above him, her skirt threatening to show too much of her legs. “Well, it would have been a waste, to have you squished into oblivion when I was only one and a half challenges away from completing my half favor.”
“To be sure,” he agreed. He forced his eyes away from her knees, or wherever, and climbed back to his feet. “Now what would you do, if you were in my place?”
“I would board that train before it gets moving again.”
He realized that once it had missed him, the locomotive had puffed to a stop not far along the tracks. Behind it were hitched several cars, and the door to one was open right before him. It had many windows, in a row somewhat above the level of his head.
So he put a hand on a rail and stepped up the steps, into the end of the long car.
The whistle blew again, and the crazy engine puffed and resumed motion, struggling to haul the cars along behind it. The steps folded up behind Forrest, sealing him in. He was on his way somewhere.
“Of course I am not in your place,” Sire murmured invisibly in his ear. “Mentia might be able to handle this situation, but I doubt I could.”
“What do you mean?”
But she had faded out. He was on his own again.
There was only one way to go: on into the main portion of the coach. It was lined with plush seats, all of which were filled with unmoving human figures. They looked like statues, for their eyes never blinked. That made him nervous.
He walked along the center aisle until he found one seat that was empty.
The coach was shaking and its floor was heaving as it got up speed, so it was hard for him to keep his feet. So he sat in that one free seat.
He heard a sound beside him. It was a young human woman, sobbing into a hankie.
Forrest had no good notion how to deal with human women, as he had not encountered many. His sandalwood tree was in a part of the forest where humans seldom wandered. But it bothered him to be so close to someone this unhappy. Since there was no other place to sit, he decided that he would have to try to deal with whatever was bothering the woman.
“Hello,” he said. “I am Forrest Faun. Is there something I can do for you?”
She turned her head and looked at him with her tear-rimmed reddened eyes. “Eeeeek!” she screamed.
This set him back slightly. “Eeeeek?”
“A satyr! As if I didn't have trouble enough already.”
“Oh. I'm not a satyr,” Forrest said firmly. “I am a faun. We are a related but less aggressive species. We chase after only willing nymphs.”
Her eyes began to clear, and her sniffles to snuffle out. “You don't pursue innocent maidens?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well, all right then. I am Dot Human, and my talent is making spots on the wall.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I Sorry?”
“That you don't have a decent magic talent. Of course I don't have a talent at all, being only part human.” He didn't count his natural faun traits as a talent.
“I have a decent talent.”
“But you said-”
“I'll show you.” She focused on the back of the seat before her.
A picture formed on it.
Forrest stared. “But that's not a spot! It's a picture.”
“It's lots of little spots. Dots. All different colors and intensities. So, taken together, they make up the picture.”
He looked closely, and saw that it was true. The picture was composed of a multitude of tiny dots, so closely set that the moment he blinked they fuzzed back into the picture. “But that's a good talent. I thought you meant spot-on-the-wall as a euphemism for having a worthless talent.”
“No, it's a good talent. But it's not doing me any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm stuck here behind the locomotive, going crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“That's what it does to you. Didn't you see all those other folk on this coach?”
“They look like dummies.”
“That's because they have gone completely loco. There's no hope for them; they've crashed. But I'm not completely loco yet, so there's hope for me. That's why I'm crying.” Her eyes began to brim again.
“I don't understand.”
“By the time you understand, it's probably too late. The effect builds gradually. Each lap the locomotive makes around the castle makes it worse. You're still fresh; you're hardly crazy at all. And I guess being close to you makes me less crazy, for a while, until we both are overwhelmed.”
Forrest was starting to catch on. “The longer we stay here, the crazier we become? Because of the locomotive?”
“Yes. I was pretty far gone, until you came in. But it won't last.”
“Then we must get off the train before it gets us.”
“We can't get off. Why do you think I was crying?”
“I wasn't sure. But I hoped to help. Why can't we get off?”
“Because it won't stop. The windows won't open, the doors won't open, and even if they did, look how fast it's going.”
He looked out the window, and saw the wall rushing by at blinding velocity. He looked across the aisle to the far windows, and saw the moat passing just as swiftly. “But it stopped for me.”
“It stops to let folk on, not to let them off.”
“Why didn't you get off when it stopped for me?”
“I couldn't. The seat belt held me.”
“What seat belt?” Forrest saw nothing of that kind.
“The automatic seat belt. It clasps you only when the train is stopping.”
“So if someone else wants to get on, I'll be belted too?”
“Yes. It belts everyone, so no one will get hurt.”
“But that's crazy!”
“Precisely.”
“Well, we'll have to get out of our seats while it's moving, then stop it.”
“I tried that. The coach is locked up. No way out of it. The locomotive won't stop unless everyone is secured.”
A bulb lighted. “The Challenge! It's to make the train stop.”
“I guess so,” Dot agreed. “But I have no idea how.”
“And if I don't figure it out pretty quick, I'll go crazy, and become another crash dummy.”
“That's true.”
Forrest pondered. He was starting to feel a bit unbalanced already, and he could only have been around the bend once or twice. But there had to be a way to get off the train. He just had to figure it out. Soon.
He saw no way, offhand. The limited scenery zoomed by unabated. Even if he could manage to open a window or door, it wouldn't be safe to jump out. He had to get the train to actually stop, without fastening him down with a seat belt. That seemed impossible.
But there did have to be a way. That was in the big book of rules, or whatever. He hoped. So what was he overlooking?
There hadn't seemed to be much way to cross the moat, either. But he had managed to use the psychologist to change things, so that it became possible. Too bad there wasn't another psychologist, to shrink the locomotive, until it couldn't pull them along so fast.
Then another bulb started to light, but he managed to suppress it before the woman saw it. There was another person, and she was
it. She must be the key to escape. She wasn't a fellow trapee, she was part of the Challenge.
But her talent was merely spots on a wall. Very good spots, but how could spots stop a train? Unless “Dot, can you make a picture outside the train?”
“Well, if there's a surface close enough.”
“Can you make a picture of a door through that wall?”
“I suppose. But the wall is moving. It would carry away my dots.”
“No, we're moving. The wall is still.”
“Oh. I suppose that's right.” She focused on the wall, and in a moment a picture formed. It was a door. It seemed to be right opposite their window, unmoving.
“Very good,” Forrest said. “Now can you make that door open?”
The door slowly opened, revealing a nice garden beyond.
“Now can you make a similar door in our window, and open it?”
The dots quickly formed a door, and it opened.
“Now all we have to do is go through those two doors, and we'll be there,” he said with satisfaction.
“It won't work,” Dot said sadly.
But he tried it anyway. He reached across her and put one hand through the nearer open door. And banged his knuckle. “ooooh!”
He brought his hand back.
“The window's still there,” Dot explained. “So is the brick wall. So is the motion. All I do is pictures, not changes. It just looks different.” The pictures faded out.
Forrest sighed. The doors were illusion; the window and wall were reality. He should have known. It had been a rather crazy idea.
Crazy. That figured.
He sat back and pondered some more. He didn't want any more ideas, he wanted something that worked. What could he come crazy up with, before his mind lost its common sense?
He still thought it related to Dot, and her talent. How could her talent stop the train? Not with illusion, but reality?
What he really needed was information. Like a manual of instructions, to know how to stop the train. But of course that was another crazy notion, because mere pictures couldn't provide that.
Or could they? Maybe it was worth a try.
“Dot, just how detailed can your pictures be?”
“Infinitely detailed,” she said proudly. “I can make dots so small they can't even be seen individually.”