Up in a Heaval

  "But before we take it farther, I have a confession to make." Gwenny made a pretty frown. "I have two physical imperfections."

  "You look perfect to me!" he blurted, blushing. Indeed, she was overwhelmingly perfect. It was hard to believe that a goblin female could be so different from a goblin male.

  "First, my vision: I don't see well naturally. Fortunately the centaurs located a lens bush, and contact with the lenses corrects my vision. So that need be of no further concern, unless I should lose a lens. Second, I am slightly lame. I have grown out of it to a considerable extent, but I can't walk any significant distance without limping. It is something to do with my knee, I think." She sat back down on the couch and lifted her knees, putting her feet on the seat.

  "They are perfect knees," Umlaut said sincerely.

  "Thank you. But I was not referring to appearance but to function. One just doesn't flex quite right." She demonstrated, lifting one foot. Umlaut suddenly saw well beyond her knees. Blackness blotted his vision.

  He found himself lying on the couch. She was mopping his face again. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I forgot how susceptible you are. It's much worse with humans than with goblin men, who are insatiably crude. I fear I inadvertently showed you my panties. I apologize profusely."

  So that was the blackness. It was the stiffest jolt he could remember. But he had to correct her misunderstanding. "I, uh—"

  "But once you join the Conspiracy, you will gradually learn to handle panties, at least when they are familiar. Illicit glimpses will always retain their potency, of course. Meanwhile I hope a gourd apology will do."

  "No, I—" But he was too late. She kissed him on the mouth. It was not wine sweet so much as mind-blowingly pleasant, as was everything about her.

  He must have faded out, because the scene shifted again. "So if you will forgive me for my eyes and knee," she was saying, "I will do my best to satisfy you in every other way."

  He finally got it out. "It's a mistake. I'm not a prince. And I'm taken."

  She gazed quizzically at him. "But Metria said—"

  "Metria's trying to stop me from delivering the letters. She's doing anything she can to mess me up. You can't believe her."

  "But in that case—"

  "I'm not a prince. I'm just a dull, ordinary guy."

  "Are you sure?"

  Umlaut discovered that he wasn't sure. "Actually I can't remember anything from before I started this mission, really. I don't know what I did before."

  "So you could be an anonymous prince."

  "I suppose. But I don't believe it. I really am ordinary. And I really am taken. I love Surprise Golem."

  "Rapunzel's daughter? I didn't realize that she was of age."

  "She's not. She's only fourteen. But I'll wait for her."

  "Of course," Gwenny said faintly. "Youth must be served."

  "I sure didn't mean to mislead you."

  "You didn't, Umlaut. I think I misled myself. I should have questioned the demoness's words; she's an endless fount of mischief. Oh, this is so embarrassing!" Now she was blushing, her dark face turning bright red.

  "I'm sorry," he said, newly ashamed.

  "I suggest we make a private agreement: to separate and never speak of this matter after."

  "Agreed!" he said. He looked at Sesame, who had swallowed her rat, and Para, who was no longer tuned out. Both of them nodded.

  "Princess Nada Naga is in the next chamber with her daughter DeMonica. Be wary of the child; she is half demon."

  "I will," Umlaut promised.

  "Now I will disband the accommodation spell." And abruptly she was half his size again, still very pretty but in miniature.

  He wasn't quite satisfied to leave it at that. "I uh, just want to say that if I had been a prince, and not, uh, committed, I would surely want to marry you. You're so pretty and nice and thoughtful. But I know I'm not worthy of you and never will be."

  "You're sweet," she said, much as Surprise had in the dream. "And I think you overrate your unworthiness. Were I not required to marry a prince for political reason, I think I would be jealous of Surprise."

  Then she conducted them to the next chamber, where her friend Nada Naga was staying. Nada turned out to be a beautiful cross between serpent and human, intriguing both Umlaut and Sesame, and her daughter was a bundle of mischief who was soon riding Para around the mountain passages.

  "This letter is, uh, not polite," Umlaut said. "I'm sorry."

  "I have had nasty letters before," the princess said. "It comes with the territory." She accepted it and did not look at it while they remained. Umlaut was glad of that.

  Chapter 17

  Dream Realm

  Claire appreciated Sammy Cat's magic talent, as it nicely complemented her own. He knew where to find anything except home; she understood the situation when they got there. He did have a certain impulsivity that he should have outgrown a decade and a half ago, but this too complemented her own rather more set nature. They were a good team and would make beautiful music together in due course. Naturally she had no use for ignoramuses who called it yowling. There were several ignoramuses in the bogs near Cat Isle; they were big ungainly beasts with bovine opinions.

  However, Claire had never been one to accept a pig in a poke; such pigs were seldom pleasant company, especially when they kept poking others. She did not quite trust the demoness Metria, whose agenda did not seem to mesh well with their own. So she soon brought Sammy to a halt. Unfortunately it happened in midair, and he dropped abruptly to the ground.

  "Exactly where are we going?" she inquired in Feline.

  "To where Soufflé Serpent's curse can be abated," he replied.

  "And where geographically is that?"

  "I'm not sure, but I know I can find it."

  "I prefer to know where I am going before I get there."

  "Well, you're female," he said, thinking that explained it.

  The cloud that portended the arrival of the demoness formed just before them. "What is the substantiality?" it inquired in the human idiom.

  "The what?" Sammy asked in Feline.

  "Element, medium, substance, constituents, body—"

  "Matter?"

  "Whatever," she agreed crossly. "Why aren't you running recklessly on your way?"

  "Because I dislike accepting an oink in an outhouse," Claire said. "Where precisely is this solution to the curse, and what is its nature?"

  The cloud shifted evasively. "That would take some exegesis."

  "Some what?" Sammy asked.

  "Explaining," Claire said shortly, preferring to avoid the thing's game. "So explain it, Demoness."

  The cloud hovered a good moment and a half, but when it was apparent even to an airheaded creature that the cats were not going anywhere without it, the demoness relented. She formed into a big lion-striped cat who spoke Feline. "It seems there is a magician, actually a lesser demon, whose job is to assign magic talents to humanoid babies and some related species when they are about to be delivered to their families."

  "I thought the storks did that," Sammy said.

  "The storks merely receive and deliver orders; they don't make the babies or infuse their souls or talents. The talents are crafted and applied by the Magician Tallyho. Regular Xanth folk don't know about him; it's a classified position, the most restricted aspect of the Adult Conspiracy."

  "What does that have to do with the curse?" Sammy asked. He did not inherently understand things the way Claire did so needed to ask.

  "Only the one who assigns the talent of cursing can nullify that talent," Metria explained. "So if you go to him and persuade him to nullify the curse fiends' curse on Soufflé Serpent, that will solve his problem so he can slither soulfully with Sesame."

  Claire still did not quite trust this. She was aware that the demoness was speaking truth but not whole truth. Because the source of the problem was elsewhere, Claire could not fathom its full nature. "What is missing from your summation?"

  "My what
?"

  "What are you hiding?"

  Metria sighed, the air of it emerging from either end. "There may be a complication reaching the magician."

  "And that is?"

  "He works in the gourd."

  The realm of dreams. "We can't go there."

  "Yes, you can. You just can't take your bodies along."

  That was a formidable catch, but it appeared to be the extent of it. They would have to do it. "Thank you," Claire said, absolutely not meaning it.

  "You're welcome," the demoness replied with muted malice. She dissolved into smoke and floated away.

  "Resume motion," Claire told Sammy.

  He bounded on, and she followed. Soon they came to a patch of greenish gourds under a spreading tree. They settled down by two whose peepholes were adjacent, touched tails, and peeped. That way they were assured of arriving in the same region of the extensive dream realm.

  The scene that opened out was surprisingly dull. It consisted of two blank doors before which were two statues of sphinxes. Possibly they were real sphinxes in repose; the distinction could become academic, and it wasn't worth the effort to make it. There were two pedestals labeled TRUTH and LIE. Evidently the sphinxes normally rested on them but had left them in favor of the ground. A sign said ONE QUESTION.

  Sammy's sense of direction left him. He did not know which door would lead to the Magician of Talents. But Claire divined the situation: One door was correct, the other spurious. They could take only one. They had to ask a sphinx. Unfortunately they did not know which sphinx was the truth teller and which was the liar. Had they been able to ask multiple questions of both sphinxes, they could have determined which one spoke truth and ask it about the doors. But they were limited to one question. Sammy was baffled.

  Fortunately Claire wasn't. Her talent enabled her to know a question that would give them the correct answer, regardless of the nature of the sphinx asked. There were several such questions to choose from, but one was all she needed. She approached the sphinx on the left and said, "If I asked the other sphinx which door is correct for us, what would it say?"

  "It would say the door on the right," the sphinx replied promptly.

  "Thank you." She turned to Sammy. "We shall take the door on the left."

  Sammy looked uncertainly at her. "But it said the other door."

  "Here is the logic," she told him patiently. "If I asked the truth teller, it would report what the liar would say, which would be the wrong door. If I asked the liar, it would lie about what the truth teller would say and tell us the wrong door. So the answer has to be wrong."

  He nodded somewhat blankly. Reasoning wasn't his strong point, but he trusted her judgment. Still, she preferred to reassure him, in the interest of future trust. "I could have asked it, If I asked you which door is correct, what would you say?' The truth teller would give the correct door. The liar would lie about what it would say, and since what it would say would be a lie, it cancels out and it would tell the correct door. So I could have accepted the answer of either one. The key is the fact that the truth teller always tells the truth, and the liar always lies; we can use their own consistency to get the right answer."

  He still looked somewhat blank, so she twitched whiskers with him and let it be. He would digest it in time. "Go through the left door," she told him firmly.

  They went through the left door, It opened on a rocky vista that descended precipitously to a violent river. A number of birds perched on boulders, and on occasion one would launch into the sky and swoop down on some helpless little creature trying to pass by. Claire assessed the situation immediately: "This is the setting for a bad dream intended for small furry creatures who misbehave. They have to run the gantlet of raptors."

  "Of what?" Sammy asked.

  "Predatory birds. See, there's a hawk on the near stone and a roc on the huge distant rock. In between is—" She paused, not recognizing the white-headed bird on the intervening boulder. So she approached it in order to get it into her voyancy range.

  The bird rotated its head without moving its body and looked at her. "Ha, a furry creature!" it squawked in Avian.

  Claire lifted a forepaw and sprang out four claws. "Try it and I will show you how it feels to be prey instead of predator," she said in Feline. Then she smiled, showing efficient carnivore teeth.

  The bird pondered three quarters of a moment and relaxed. "I was merely making small talk."

  Uh-huh. "What kind of bird are you?"

  "I am an eagle from Mundania."

  "My associate Sammy is from an alien region too: the World of Two Moons."

  "Fascinating," the eagle said in a bored squawk.

  "What is the best way out of this scene?"

  "I don't have to tell you that, pussy. I am obliged to help only lost Eagle Scouts. That's why I'm here."

  There were limits to Claire's tolerance. She had tried to be polite. Now she pounced, but the eagle took off before she got hold of it. She landed neatly on the boulder. Well, she had made her point: She did not accept insolence from birds.

  "Find a safe way through," she told Sammy, "in the direction of Magician Tallyho."

  He walked to the side, picking his way between stones and birds, and she followed. They came to a fort fashioned of stacked stones. There was no way around it, so they cautiously went toward it.

  A human man sat therein, laboring on a long arrow. He looked up as they approached. "Hello, cats," he said in Human. "You're not part of this setting."

  "Can you understand Feline?" Claire asked and knew immediately that he did.

  "Of course. All denizens of the dream realm understand each other."

  "I am Claire, and this is Sammy," she said. "We are looking for Magician Tallyho."

  "And I am Thorin, master archer and magic arrow maker. I don't know the way to reach Tallyho; I'm confined to my station here, making powerful barbs."

  Claire was aware that something remarkable was here that might be worth knowing. "What kind of arrows are they?"

  "I shall happily demonstrate, if you wish. I seldom get the chance to show off my wares. The birds are definitely not interested."

  Claire could appreciate why. Normally nothing on the ground was a threat to a flying bird, but an archer with arrows was. "Please demonstrate."

  "This is an arrow of betrayal," Thorin said, holding up a thin, dark one. It didn't look very formidable. "I need a volunteer to walk in my line of fire. This will not be lethal, I promise. It is just that showing is better than telling." He picked up a bow.

  Sammy glanced at the arrow, which looked too weak to penetrate cat hide. He walked before the archer.

  Thorin nocked the arrow on his bowstring and fired it. It missed the cat and struck Sammy's shadow. Immediately the shadow detached itself from the cat and rose up and grabbed Sammy's tail.

  "Yowl!" Sammy cried, surprised. He whirled and bashed the shadow with a paw. The shadow fell apart and dissipated.

  "You see, it causes a creature's shadow to attack its former master. A shadow normally can't do much damage, as we saw, but it comes as a surprise, and if the creature is in a precarious situation, this could make it do something foolish, such as falling off a high branch. I also make arrows of fire, light, darkness, and love."

  "That last does not seem dangerous," Sammy said.

  "That depends on whom it strikes. A creature who stays well clear of a love spring could nevertheless be caught by such an arrow and thereafter be bound in love to one he might otherwise hate. It can be extremely awkward if she does not return his passion."

  Claire nodded appreciatively. The arrow of love could be deadlier than any of the others. "Thank you," she said. "We must move on now."

  "I appreciate your brief company," Thorin said. "Much better than those birdbrains."

  "Find someone who can and will help us through this labyrinth," Claire told Sammy.

  They proceeded to the edge of the set and found a yellow horse grazing on a patch of grass. Claire knew
that he was no night mare but wasn't sure what he was. She would have to get closer to him, so that her talent could take hold.

  The horse saw them coming. "Hello, cats," he said.

  "Hello, horse," Claire replied, then paused, surprised. "Did you speak in Human?"

  "I did. I am Xanthus, from Greece, Mundania, circa three thousand years ago. I have an illustrious heritage, being the offspring of the West Wind and a harpy. I have been looking for a home and seem to have found it here in the dream realm. I do on occasion get lonely for company, however; my natural taste does not run to human bad dreams."

  "I am Claire Voyant, and this is Sammy Cat. We are looking for Magician Tallyho, but the route seems devious."

  "All routes are devious here," Xanthus said. "That's the nature of dreams. They are seldom straightforward. In addition, Tallyho is reclusive, hidden beyond a number of unpleasant settings. However, I will be happy to carry you there, for the pleasure of your brief company."

  That was why Sammy had located this horse. It seemed that company was a valuable commodity here in the dream realm.

  They jumped up onto a pad set on Xanthus's back and rode through the ensuing sets in style. They saw communities of centaurs, pools of merfolk, clumps of ogres, and all manner of monsters. "They are all players in bad dreams," Xanthus explained, happy to be their tour guide. "Every day the dreams are carefully crafted for the night mares to carry to deserving sleepers. It's a tremendous industry and constantly growing. It seems that people don't learn well from experience and so deserve worse dreams."

  "Are there no good dreams?" Sammy asked.

  "Oh, not here! The day mares carry day dreams, and I suppose some carry good dreams at night. But there's really not much point in good dreams, because they don't cause errant folk to change their ways."

  "Doesn't anybody do what is right simply because it is right?" Sammy asked.

  Xanthus turned his head back to look at him. "You're new here. You haven't seen into the minds of ordinary folk."

  "I have," Claire said. "In my fashion. Few are concerned with what is right or honorable in the larger sense. Most want simply to secure their own safety and pleasure. If there were not some mechanism to keep them in line, they would soon be very bad neighbors."