Dor started in the morning, using his talent to solve part of the problem of travel. "Stones, give me a warning whistle whenever I approach anything dangerous to me, and let me know the best route to the Good Magician's castle."
"We can tell you what is dangerous," the rocks chorused. There were no stony silences for him "But we don't know where the Good Magician's castle is. He has strewn little forget-spells all over."
"He should have known. I've been there," Grundy offered. "It's not far south of the Gap. Bear north toward the Gap, then east, then south to his castle."
"And if I'm off, and miss it, where will I wind up?" Dor inquired sourly.
"In the belly of a dragon, most likely."
Dor bore north, heeding the whistles. Most citizens of Xanth did not know of the Gap's existence, because it had been enchanted into anonymity, but Dor had lived all his life in this neighborhood and visited the chasm several times. Warned by his talent, he steered clear of diversions such as dragon runs, tangle trees, ant-lion prides, choke nettles, saw grass, and other threats. Only his father Bink could traverse the wilderness alone with greater equanimity, and maybe King Trent himself. Still, Grundy was nervous. "If you don't live to be King, I'll be in big trouble," he remarked, not entirely humorously.
When they got hungry, the stones directed them to the nearest breadloaf trees, soda poppies, and jelly-barrel trunks. Then on, as the day waned.
"Say!" Grundy exclaimed. "There are one-way paths from Humfrey's castle to the Gap. We're bound to cross one. The stones will know where such a path is, because they will have seen people walking along them. The forget spells are just about the location of the Magician's castle, not about stray people, so we can bypass them."
"Right!" Dor agreed. "Stones, have any of you seen much travel?"
There was a chorus of no's. But he kept checking as he progressed, and in due course found some stones (hat had indeed observed such travelers. After some experimentation, he managed to get aligned with the path, and took a step toward the chasm. There it was, suddenly: a clear path leading to a bridge that seemed to span the full width of the Gap. But when he faced the other way, there was only jungle. Fascinating magic, these paths!
"Maybe if you walked backward--" Grundy suggested.
"But then I'd stumble into all sorts of things!"
"Well, you walk forward, and I'll face backward and keep an eye on the path."
They tried that, and it worked. The stones gave general guidance, and Grundy warned him whenever he drifted to one side or another. They made good progress, for of course the path was charmed, with no serious hazards in its immediate vicinity. But it had taken some time to find it, and when dark closed in they were still in the wilderness. Fortunately they located a pillow bush and fashioned a bed of multicolored pillows, setting out sputtering bugbombs from a bug-bomb weed to repel predatory insects. They didn't worry about rain; Dor called out to a passing cloud, and it assured him that the clouds were all resting tonight, saving up for a blowout two days hence.
In the morning they feasted on boysengirls berries, the seeds like tiny boys a bit strong, and the jelly girls a bit sweet, so that they had to be taken together for full enjoyment. They washed the berries down with the juice from punctured coffee beans and took up the march again. Dor felt somewhat stiff; he wasn't used to this amount of walking. "Funny, I feel fine," Grundy remarked. He, of course, had ridden Dor's shoulder most of the way.
Another friendly cloud advised them when the Magician's castle was in sight. Humfrey had not thought to put forget spells on the clouds, or perhaps had found it impractical, since clouds tended to drift constantly. As it was, Dor realized he was fortunate these were good-natured cumulus clouds, instead of the bad-tempered thunderheads. By midmorning they were there.
The castle was small but pretty, with round turrets stretching up beyond the battlements, and a cute blue moat. Within the moat swam a triton: a handsome man with a fish's tail, carrying a wicked triple-tipped spear. He glared at the intruders.
"I think our first hurdle is upon us," Grundy remarked. "That merman is not about to let us pass."
"How did you get past, when you came to ask a Question?" Dor asked.
"That was a dozen years ago! It's all been changed. I snuck by a carnivorous seaweed in the moat, and climbed a slippery glass wall, and outsmarted a sword swallower inside."
"A sword swallower? How could he hurt you?"
"He burped."
Dor thought about that, and smiled. But the golem was right: past experience was no aid to the present. Not while the Good Magician's defenses kept changing.
He put a foot forward to touch the surface of the water. Immediately the triton swam forward, head and arm raised, trident poised. "It is only fair to warn you, intruder, that I have five notches on my spear shaft."
Dor jerked back his foot. "How do we get past this monster?" he asked, staring into the moat.
"I'm not allowed to tell you that," the water replied apologetically. "The old gnome's got everything counterspelled."
"He would," Grundy grumbled. "You can't out-gnome a gnome in his own home."
"But there is a way," Dor said. "We just have to figure it out. That's the challenge."
"While the Magician chortles inside, waiting to see if we'll make it or get speared. He's got a sense of humor like that of a tangle tree."
Dor made as if to dive into the moat. The triton raised his trident again. The merman's arm was muscular, and as he supported his body well out of the water the points of his weapon glinted in the sun. Dor backed off again.
"Maybe there's a tunnel under the moat," Grundy suggested.
They walked around the moat. At one point there was a metallic plaque inscribed with the words TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
"I don't know what that means," Dor complained.
'Til translate," Grundy said. "It means: keep out."
"I wonder if it means more?" Dor mused. "Why should Humfrey put a sign out here, when there's no obvious way in anyway? Why say it in language only a golem understands? That doesn't seem to make sense--which means it probably makes a lot of sense, if you interpret it correctly."
"I don't know why you're fulminating about a stupid sign, when you need to be figuring out how to cross the moat."
"Now, if there were a tunnel that the Magician could use without running afoul of his own hazards, he'd need a marked place for it to emerge," Dor continued. "Naturally he wouldn't want anyone else using it without his permission. So he might cover it over and put a stay-away spell on it. Like this."
"You know, I think you've got a brain after all," Grundy admitted. "But you'd have to have a counter-spell to get it open, and it's not allowed to tell you that secret."
"But it's only a stone. Not too bright. We might be able to trick it."
"I get you. Let's try a dialogue, know what I mean?" They had played this game before.
Dor nodded, smiling. They stepped up close to the plaque. "Good morning, plaque," Dor greeted it.
"Not to you, it ain't," the plaque responded. "I ain't going to tell you nothing."
"That's because you don't know nothing," Grundy said loudly, with a fine sneer in his voice.
"I do not know nothing!"
"My friend claims you have no secrets to divulge," Dor told the plaque.
"Your friend's a dumdum."
"The plaque says you're a dumdum," Dor informed Grundy.
"Yeah? Well the plaque's a dumdum."
"Plaque, my friend says you're a--"
"I am not!" the plaque retorted angrily. "He's the dumdum." What feelings objects had tended to be superficial. "He doesn't have my secret."
"What secret, dodo?" Grundy demanded, his voice even more heavily freighted with sneer than before.
"My secret chamber, that's what! He doesn't have that, does he?"
"Nobody has that," Grundy cried, scowling. "You're just making that up so we won't think you're the granitehead you really are!"
/> "Is that so? Well look at that, dumdum!" And the face of the plaque swung open to reveal an interior chamber. Inside was a small box.
Dor reached in and snatched out the box before the plaque caught on to its mistake. "And what have we here?" he inquired gleefully.
"Gimme that back!" the plaque cried. "It's mine, all mine!"
Dor studied the box. On the top was a button marked with the words DON'T PUSH. He pushed it.
The lid sprang up. A snakelike thing leaped out, startling Dor, who dropped the box. "HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!" it bellowed.
The snake-thing landed on the ground, its energy spent. "Jack, at your service," it said. "Jack in the box. You sure look foolish."
"A golem," Grundy said. "I should have known. Golems are insufferable."
"You oughta know, pinhead," Jack retorted. He reached into a serpentine pocket and drew out a shiny disk. "Here is an achievement button to commemorate the occasion." He held it up.
Dor reached down and took the button. It had two faces. On one side it said TRESPASSER. On the other it said PERSECUTED.
Dor had to laugh, ruefully. "I guess I fell for it! That's what I get for seeking the easy way through."
He put the button against his shirt, where it stuck magically, PERSECUTED side out. Then he picked up the Jack, put him back in the box, closed the lid, set the works back inside the plaque's chamber, and closed that, "Well played, plaque," he said. "Yeah," the plaque agreed, mollified. They returned their attention to the moat. "No substitute for my own ingenuity," Dor said. "But this diversion has given me a notion. If we can be tricked by a decoy--"
"I don't see what you're up to," Grundy said. "That triton knows his target."
"That triton thinks he knows his target. Watch this." And Dor squatted by the water and said to it: "I shall make a wager with you, water. I bet that you can't imitate my voice."
"Yeah?" the water replied, sounding just like Dor. "Hey, that's pretty good, for a beginner. But you can't do it in more than one place at a time."
"That's what you think!" the water said in Dor's voice from two places.
"You're much better than I thought!" Dor confessed ruefully. "But the real challenge is to do it so well that a third party could not tell which is me and which is you. I'm sure you couldn't fool that triton, for example."
"That wetback?" the water demanded. "What do you want to bet, sucker?"
"That water's calling you a kind of fish," Grundy muttered.
Dor considered. "Well, I don't have anything you would value. Unless--that's it! You can't talk to other people, but you still need some way to show them your prowess. You could do that with this button." He brought up the TRESPASSER / PERSECUTED button, showing both sides. "See, it says what you do to intruders. You can flash it from your surface in sinister warning."
"You're on!" the water said eagerly. "You hide, and if old three-point follows my voice instead of you, I win the prize."
"Right," Dor agreed. "I really hate to risk an item of this value, but then I don't think I'm going to lose it You distract him, and I'll hide under your surface. If he can't find me before I drown, the button's yours."
"Hey, there's a flaw in that logic!" Grundy protested. "If you drown--"
"Hello, fishtail!" a voice cried from the far side of the moat. "I'm the creep from the jungle!"
The triton, who had been viewing the proceedings without interest, whirled. "Another one?"
Dor slipped into the water, took half a breath, and dived below the surface. He swam vigorously, feeling the cool flow across his skin. No trident struck him. As his lungs labored painfully against his locked throat, he found the inner wall of the moat and thrust his head up.
He gasped for breath, and so did Grundy, still clinging to his shoulder. The triton was still chasing here and there, following the shifting voices. "Over here, sharksnoot! No, here, mer-thing! Are you blind, fish-face?"
Dor heaved himself out. "Safe!" he cried. "You win, moat; here's the prize. It hurts awfully to lose it, but you sure showed me up." And he flipped the button into the water.
"Anytime, sucker," the water replied smugly.
The significance of Grundy's prior comment sank in belatedly. A sucker was a kind of fish, prone to fasten to the legs of swimmers and--but he hoped there were none here.
The decoy voices subsided. The triton looked around, spotting him with surprise. "How did you do that? I chased you all over the moat!"
"You certainly did," Dor agreed. "I'm really breathless."
"You some sort of Magician or something?"
That describes it."
"Oh." The triton swam away, affecting loss of interest
The second challenge was now before them. There was a narrow ledge of stone between the moat and the castle wall. Dor found no obvious entry to the castle. "It's always this way," Grundy said wisely. "A blank wall. Inanimate obstacle. But the worst is always inside."
"Good to know," Dor said, feeling a chill that was not entirely from his soaking clothing. He was beginning to appreciate the depth of the challenge King Trent had made for him. At each stage he was forced to question his ability and his motive: were the risk and effort worth the prize? He had never been exposed to a sustained challenge of this magnitude before, where even his talent could help him only deviously. With the counterspells against things--giving away information, he was forced to employ his magic very cleverly, as with the moat. Maybe this was the necessary course to manhood--but he would much prefer to have a safe route home. He was, after all, only a boy. He didn't have the mass and thews of a man, and certainly not the courage. Yet here he was--and he had better go forward, because the triton would hardly let him go back.
The mass and thews of a man. The notion appealed insidiously. If by some magic he could become bigger and stronger than his father, and be skilled with the sword, so that he didn't have to have an ogre backing him up--ah, then wouldn't his problems be over! No more weaseling about, using tricks to sneak by tritons, arguing with plaques...
But this was foolish wishful thinking. He would never be such a man, even when full grown. "Full groan," he muttered, appreciating the morbid pun. Maybe he would have made a good zombie!
They circled the castle again. At intervals there were alcoves with plants growing in them, decorating the blank wall. But they weren't approachable plants. Stinkweeds, skunk cabbages, poison ivy--the last flipped a drop of glistening poison at him, but he avoided it. The drop struck the stone ledge and etched a smoking hole in it. Another alcove held a needle-cactus, one of the worst plant menaces of all. Dor hastened on past that one, lest the ornery vegetable elect to fire a volley of needles at him.
"You climbed a wall of glass?" Dor inquired skeptically, contemplating the blank stone. He was not a good climber, and there were no handholds, steps, or other aids in existence.
"I was a golem then--a construct of string gunk. It didn't matter if I fell; I wasn't real. I exist only to do translations. Today I could not climb that glass wall, or even this stone wall; I have too much reality to lose."
Too much reality to lose. That made sense. Dor's own reality became more attractive as he pondered the possible losing of it. Why was he wishing for a hero's body and power? He was a Magician, probable heir to the throne. Strong men were common; Magicians were rare. Why throw that away--for a zombie?
Then he thought of lovely Millie. To do something nice for her, make her grateful. Ah, foolishness! But it seemed he was also that kind of a fool. Maybe it came with growing up. Her talent of sex appeal--
Dor tapped at the stone. It was distressingly solid. No hollow panels there. He felt for crevices. The interstices between stones were too small for his fingers, and he already knew there were no ledges for climbing. "Got to be in one of those alcoves," he said.
They checked the alcoves, carefully. There was nothing. The noxious plants grew from stone planters sitting on the rampart; there was no secret entrance through their dirt.
But the niche of th
e needle-cactus seemed deeper. In fact it curved into darkness beyond the cactus. A passage!
Now all he had to do was figure out how to pass one of the deadliest of the medium-sized plants of Xanth. Needle-cactuses tended to shoot first and consider afterward. Even a tangle tree would probably give way to a needier, if they grew side by side. Chester the centaur, a friend of Dor's father, still had puncture scars marring his handsome rump where a needier had chastened him.
Dor poked his head cautiously around the corner. "I don't suppose you feel like letting a traveler pass?" he inquired without much hope.
A needle shot directly at his face. He jerked violently back, and it hissed on out to land in the moat There was an irate protest from the triton, who didn't like having his residence littered.
"The needier says no," Grundy translated gratuitously.
"I could have guessed." How was he going to pass this hurdle? He couldn't swim under this cactus, or reason with it, or avoid it. There was barely room to squeeze by it, in the confined alcove.
"Maybe loop it with a rope, and haul it out of the way," Grundy suggested dubiously.
"We don't have a rope," Dor pointed out. "And nothing to make one with."
"I know someone whose talent is making ropes from water," Grundy said.
"So he could pass this menace. We can't. And if we did have rope, we'd get needled the moment we hauled the cactus out into the open."
"Unless we yanked it right into the moat." Dor chuckled at the thought. Then he got serious. "Could we fashion a shield?"
"Nothing to fashion it from. Same problem as the rope. This ledge is barren. Now if cacti don't like water at all, maybe we can scoop--"
"They can live without it, but they like it fine," Dor said. "They get rained on all the time. Just so long as it doesn't flood too much. Splashing won't do any good, unless--" He paused, considering. "If we could send a lot of water flowing through there, flood out the cactus, wash the dirt from its pot, expose the roots--"