They moved on. Sesame glanced at him sidelong, and he knew why: He was awkward and clumsy and nothing special in his natural state, so why did girls like him? It was a mystery.
They made it without further event to the real Good Magician's Castle, which looked exactly like the cardboard replica, except that the moat water was real and so, surely, was the stone in the walls.
"Now all we have to do is enter the castle, ask for the Good Magician, and ask him what to do about that Red Spot," Umlaut said. "How complicated can that be?"
But Sammy Cat stirred restlessly, and Sesame Serpent looked doubtful. What was their problem?
Then he saw that the way across the bridge was blocked by an enormous pile of large jigsaw puzzle pieces. Each piece was painted with black or white squares. Some of the white squares had letters of the alphabet on them, and some had numbers in their corners. "What's this mess?" he asked.
Sammy Cat started to go into a series of motions and gestures indicating a complicated explanation, but Umlaut cut him off. "We don't have time for this. Let's just go around this rubble."
Still they were doubtful. Sammy was contemplating the puzzle pieces, and Sesame was staring at the moat. Now Umlaut looked at the moat too but saw nothing untoward. "We can swim across; there's no slime in that water."
But the moment he stepped toward the water, an array of swimming monsters appeared. He wasn't sure of their exact types, but they all seemed to have gleaming eyes, sharp fins, and big teeth. "Maybe it's too cool to swim."
He decided that he did have time after all to fathom what Sammy had to say. He questioned the cat and soon understood. "You mean this is a challenge? We can't get inside unless we handle three challenges? That's ridiculous!"
Yet it seemed to be so. Sammy knew something about the Good Magician's little eccentricities. He did not like to be bothered by frivolous questions, so he put obstacles in the way of querents (it was a struggle to elicit that obscure term from the cat; it meant people who asked questions) and refused to talk to them unless they got past them. Apparently only a few had the stamina or wit to handle the challenges, so the Good Magician was not bothered too often. So here was a challenge, and they had either to handle it or give up and go away, which might satisfy the magician.
For some reason he couldn't quite identify, that annoyed Umlaut.
"Here we come to ask a question that may enable us to save Earth and Xanth from destruction or worse, and we have to go through this nonsense." The others agreed but had no way to bypass the nonsense.
There was something about the pile of puzzle pieces they had to understand or handle, in order to get by them. What could that be? Umlaut was just about annoyed enough to tackle it. If only he could figure out how.
He picked up a white piece with the letter C on it. He turned it over, but it was blank on back. He looked at another, with the letter A. There seemed to be many different letters. What was he supposed to do with them?
He looked at Sammy and Sesame, but they had no better idea than he did.
"Well, maybe if I put them in order," he said. He laid down the A and searched through the pile for a B, then added the C. He continued until he had the whole alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9. But when it was complete, nothing happened. Also, there were many duplicate letters left in the pile, which hardly seemed diminished. So this did not seem to be the answer.
"Maybe if I made a word or two." He collected letters and spelled out GOOD MAGICIAN. Still nothing happened.
He had had enough. "What am I going to do with you?"
There was a stir in the air. A cloud formed. A voice issued from it. "What did you have in intellect?"
"In what?"
"Reason, sense, recall, understanding, memory—"
"Mind?"
"Whatever," the cloud replied crossly.
"Hello, Demoness Metria."
The cloud shaped into a divinely human figure. Fortunately this time it was covered by a reasonably proper dress that extended from neck to ankles, so Umlaut did not lose control of his eyeballs. "How did you know it was me?"
"I made a wild guess and got lucky. What brings you here?"
"You seemed to be eager to do something, so naturally I came to be a part of it."
"Why?"
"Because I get dulled by routine."
"Do you mean bored?"
"That's not the prescribed format."
"I'm tired of that kind. Here I'm supposed to figure out what to do with these bleeping blocks, and I hate it."
"Oooo, what you said!"
"Well, I'm annoyed. Do you have any idea what to do with them?"
She gazed at the pile. "Dump them into the moat?"
Umlaut considered that. He looked at Sammy and Sesame. It was true that they had not yet tried that.
He picked up the A block and tossed it at the water. It sailed around in a loop and landed back on the pile. "Why did I have this nasty suspicion that that wouldn't work?"
"I have no idea," the demoness said. "I'm still waiting for you to tell me what you had in mind for me."
"I don't have anything in mind for you! I was talking about this confounded pile of pieces."
"Then it must be time for a diversion." Her dress shrank a size.
"No it isn't!" Umlaut said. He was beginning to appreciate why Breanna had been short with the demoness. It was hard to get things done efficiently while she was distracting people.
"Not even one this size?" The dress shrank another size, but the body didn't; things were getting rather tight.
"No size! Go away!"
"There must be something really interesting going on," Metria said, looking around. Umlaut realized that he should not have demanded that she depart. It had the effect of stiffening her resolve to remain.
So he tried to make the best of it. "We're up against some sort of challenge and can't figure it out. But if we can't, you can't either, so you might as well not bother to try."
"Right. There is no point in trying. Let's consider storks." Her dress shrank another size, revealing a bit too much flesh.
He realized that she must have caught on. She wasn't here to help, anyway. He tried to ignore her, but it was not possible to ignore that exposed flesh. His eyes struggled but soon locked relentlessly into place.
Only his voice remained. "Get your uncovered hide out of here!" he said crossly.
There was a stir by the bridge. The demoness heard it and turned to look. In the process she freed Umlaut's eyes. He quickly shaded them with his hand so as not to get caught again when she turned back.
"Now that's interesting," Metria murmured, gazing at the bridge.
Indeed it was. The puzzle pieces were moving by themselves, forming a tall, slick wall with a display of letters across and downward.
"What's going on?" he asked, amazed.
"It's forming a crossword puzzle," Metria replied. "How did you make it do that?"
"I didn't. I was just trying to get rid of you, and suddenly it started."
"No, it had to be you, because you're the querent. What did you say to it?"
"Nothing! I told you to get your uncovered hide out of here."
"So you did," she agreed. "And naturally I was about to respond by uncovering it the rest of the way, like this."
Umlaut clapped his hand completely across his eyes just in time to shut out the eyeball-gluing sight. Some other time he might have liked to have peeked, but he knew better than to yield at this moment. "So I did nothing. Now you can go."
"You have to have done article."
He knew better than this too but couldn't stop himself. "Done what?"
"Deed, item, being, exploit, procedure—"
"Something?"
"Whatever," she agreed crossly.
Then a bulb flashed over his head. "Cross! That's what did it."
"Did what?"
"Solved the challenge! It's a crossword puzzle. I said a cross word."
"But I was cross before you were, and
it didn't do anything."
"You're not the one with the challenge."
She considered a moment. "I think he's got it. Curses, foiled again." She was silent.
For a moment Umlaut thought she was still there. Then Sesame nudged him, and he looked. The demoness was gone.
"She was trying to mess me up, and instead she helped me handle the challenge," he said. "No wonder she was cross." Then he laughed. It certainly served her right.
They looked at the crossword wall. It had an intricate display of words across and down that interlinked. For example, the word CROSS went across, and the word WORD crossed it going down, using the same O. Umlaut had not seen such a device before and was intrigued. It seemed to be a fairly efficient way to write words, because the sharing of letters meant that more words could be made without expanding the number of letters. Black squares showed where the words ended, and those squares formed a neat pattern across the board. There was a certain crude art to it.
However, the wall still blocked off the drawbridge. (DRAW shared the letter D with BRIDGE.) He was sure he couldn't go around it. So either there was more to the puzzle than he had solved so far, or this was another challenge. Either way, he had to figure it out.
Now he saw that not all the white spaces had letters. Some were blank. Also, there were words on either side of the puzzle squares. On the left it said Across, and on the right it said Down, and of course those did not manage to share their O, He wondered whether that made them feel unfulfilled.
Sammy nudged his leg. He looked down. The cat walked up to the left-side words and rubbed against them.
Oh. He needed to pay attention to what they said, instead of merely admiring the overall form.
The words turned out to be questions. The first was 1 across: WHO ARE YOU?
"I am Umlaut, of course," he said. "Does it matter?" But of course it was foolish to talk to a board. He had heard of a king who could talk to inanimate things and make them answer, but that was not his own talent.
So why was this board asking him his name?
Sesame nudged his right arm. He looked, and she moved her snout forward to touch the central portion of the board. There was a series of blanks—one of the missing words.
Once again a bulb flashed. "Maybe my name fits there!"
Now he saw that a few loose blocks remained. He sorted through them, picking out the letters of his name. U LAUT. But the M was missing. How could he fill it in with a letter missing?
Then he cursed himself for a fool. He put the letters into place. The letter M was there, in another word that his name crossed.
The second hint said: 2 down: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
"Into the Good Magician's Castle," he said impatiently. But he saw immediately that that didn't fit. So he tried again. "On a quest." That didn't fit, either.
Sammy nudged him. He looked down. The cat had scratched a bare place on the ground and set a red cherry in the center of it. What was the significance of that?
Then yet another bulb flashed. "Red Spot!" he exclaimed. "I'm on a quest to solve the problem of the Red Spot!"
But that was two words, and there was space for only one word, six letters long. The last letter was T, because it intersected the end of his crosswise name.
But if he jammed them together, it would make one word. Quickly he gathered letters and filled in REDSPOT.
The third hint said 3 down: WHAT IS THIS?
"A bleeping nuisance," he said with half a smile. But it took him only a moment, or perhaps an instant and a half, to come up with the missing word, because it overlapped the A in his name. He gathered the letters and filled it in. CHALLENGE.
The board flashed. He had solved the second challenge, with the help of his friends.
But it still blocked the way across the bridge. What remained to be done?
"The third challenge," he muttered. "It must relate to this in some way. What can it be?"
He had no idea. He gazed at the board, pondering. Was there something wrong with it? He didn't see anything.
He looked at his companions. They had gone to sleep. Sesame had formed a neat coil, with Sammy snoozing on top of it. The serpent's head rested comfortably on a checkered box. On the box was the word SPELL.
Still another bulb flashed. Umlaut had never had so many go off in such a short time; he was lucky his head wasn't burning out. "That has to be a spell checker," he said. "To check the spelling of the puzzle."
He leaned down, carefully moved Sesame's head to the side, and picked up the box. It was featureless, aside from the word and design. How was he supposed to use it?
He shook it. It rattled. "Oh, it's a box," he said. "There's something inside."
Sammy made a Duh! expression.
Umlaut turned the box over. Nothing there. He felt around its sides. He found a panel that felt slightly loose. He pushed it to the side, and it slid across to reveal a button. He pushed the button, and the top of the box sprang open. He had figured it out, mostly by chance, mishap, and blind luck, as was his usual mode. Rather than being a box to check spelling, maybe it was a checkered box holding spells.
Inside were several small objects. They didn't look like spells, but of course he had no idea what a solid spell looked like. He picked out a pair of two little horns. They expanded in his hands, becoming the size of feet. He tried blowing into one, but it made no sound. So maybe they weren't horns. In that case, what were they?
He tried putting one on his foot. It fit. It was a shoe! He put the other on, and it fit well enough. But when he tried to walk in them, he tripped. It wasn't him, it was the shoes; they refused to go anywhere. Something was wrong with them.
He set them aside and took out another object. This one resembled a slice of bread, and it too expanded in his hand to normal size. But when he tried to take a bite of it, he couldn't; the thing was rubbery and inedible. Maybe it was supposed to be food, but there was something wrong with it, just as was the case with the shoes.
He tried another object. This looked like a statuette of a woman with rather healthy thighs under her skirt. She wore a hat that looked like a lens on top, almost as if it were meant to shine a light. Maybe this was a decorative flashlight. He pointed the lens and squeezed the body, but nothing happened. So maybe this was another broken spell.
Another object looked like a small piece of cake. It expanded in his hand, and now it looked more like a ramp or path, or perhaps a walk. Cake in the shape of a walk? "Cakewalk!" he said. But nothing happened. He had either misunderstood, or this was another broken spell.
"Everything in this box seems to be broken," he said. "Maybe the challenge is to fix them. But I don't know the first thing about magic, or even the second or third things. How can I fix what I don't understand?"
Sammy Cat looked at him as if he were being stupid. Cats were good at that, he realized. So how was he being stupid?
"Maybe I'm taking too much on myself," he said. “These challenges must be for all three of us. What do you folk think of this?"
Sesame wriggled, so he went into the nineteen-questions routine with her and learned that she thought he should look for another spell: one to check and fix the others. That could be the challenge; to find out how to use the tool he had.
It did seem to make sense. He checked the other objects and spied one that looked like a checker in the game of checkers. That was bound to be it. A single checker did not make a checker game, so it must be another kind of checker. A spell checker.
He held it in his hand and touched it to a shoe horn. The horn honked with a big bass rumble. He touched the other, and it honked with a delicate ladylike titter. The horns were working now.
He put the shoes on his feet again. This time they walked with him, and with each step they honked. HONK! Honkie. HONK! Hon-kie. It was a wild combination. They certainly were a pair of shoe horns, sounding off as they hit the ground. The spell checker had checked and fixed them.
He touched the checker to the inedible slic
e of bread. The slice heated and turned dark at the edges. It was toasting! It was a piece of toast.
He was about to try a bite when a toothy fish leaped out of the moat, snapped up the toast, and landed back in the water. "Hey!" Umlaut protested. "You stole my toast!"
But the fish did not get to enjoy its stolen morsel. Another fish bit off half of it before the first fish could swallow it. Then both fish looked stricken. They rolled over on their backs and floated there, dead to the world.
Umlaut stared. Just what kind of toast was this? Was the Good Magician trying to poison him?
Then he laughed, catching on. "It's coma toast!" he exclaimed. "It puts folk into a coma."
There was a groan from the moat. Not from the comatose fish but from others around them. They had heard the pun.
Umlaut touched the checker to the statuette light. It abruptly grew into a full-sized woman. "Well, I never!" she said and walked away. Her thighs glowed right through her skirt.
"Cellulight," Umlaut murmured appreciatively. Another spell had been fixed. There was another groan from the moat.
He touched the checker to the cakewalk. It expanded, extending toward the crossword board and through it. The board disappeared, and the walk went on across the bridge, unrolling like a red carpet.
"I believe we have resolved the third challenge," Umlaut said. He glanced at the moat. "What does your kind think of that?" But he got no answer; the moat monsters had disappeared.
They followed the red carpet across the moat and into the castle. A young woman met them at the gate. "Hello, Umlaut, Sesame, Sammy," she said. "I am Wira, the Good Magician's daughter-in-law. Please come this way." She turned and walked into the castle.
There was something odd about her. It wasn't that she knew their names. Humfrey was the Magician of Information, so he knew everything worth knowing; naturally he had their names. It was something about the way she had looked at them.
Sammy nudged him. When he looked at the cat, he put a paw over his face as if he couldn't see, then pointed the paw at Wira.
"She can't see?" Umlaut asked, surprised.
"It is true," Wira said without turning. "I am blind. But I know my way around the castle."
Umlaut was glad she couldn't see him blushing. He had forgotten that it wasn't safe to talk to the animals while a person was listening.