“Pleasant awakening,” the Night Stallion said.
Then they were back in the room, facing each other across the table. Their eye contact with their gourds had been broken, though the villager assigned to do this had not yet appeared. The Stallion had done it, showing his power in a minor way.
“Now let’s go see the Mare again,” Mindy said briskly.
They did, then returned to the room for the night. “Trojan seemed amused,” Bryce said. “And I question his judgment of the Princess Harmony.”
“Don’t. He surely has her pegged.”
“But he was calling her devious. She seemed straightforward to me.”
Mindy smiled. “Your experience with women may be limited.”
“I’m eighty years old!” Then he laughed. “But yes, it is limited. Let’s leave it at that.”
A village girl arrived with a basket of food. “Oh—you’re off the gourd,” she said.
“Yes, a while ago,” Mindy said. “But thanks for coming, just to be safe.”
The girl set out the food and drink. It was a nice meal for two. Then she departed.
They ate, then took turns washing at the basin in the corner. Bryce did not look while Mindy was washing, though he suspected she would not have minded if he did. This was not entirely politeness; he feared the sight of her body would turn him on. Pajamas and a nightie were laid out, so they donned them.
They lay on the bed, Bryce on the left side, Mindy on the right. She extinguished the candle by her side.
“You know,” she murmured in the darkness, “no one would see if you moved across to my side.”
“But two people would know,” he said, not pretending to misunderstand.
“This is Kiss Mee. Everybody here does it, and they don’t stop at kisses. They expect it. That’s why there’s only one bed.”
She was surely correct. But it didn’t change his position. He was not about to take something merely because it was available, however infernally tempting it might be. “We have been through this before.”
She sighed. “We have.”
He feared she was crying. “Mindy, even if I weren’t in love with the princess, I still would not be making moves on you. You’re almost as young as she is.”
“And you won’t touch anyone that young, however willing, even if no one else knows.”
“Correct.” He wasn’t sure she would ever really understand. She did not have his extra three-score years of sometimes bitter experience.
She buried her face in the pillow. After a time her muffled sobbing ceased and she breathed evenly in sleep.
Only then could Bryce relax. He knew he was doing the right thing. Why, then, did he feel so guilty?
In the morning they found breakfast already laid out for them; evidently the girl had come and left it without waking them. What had the girl thought about their slumber on the bed? Did it matter?
Soon they resumed their traveling, riding their trikes on out of town. The people ignored them, going about their routine business. Evidently the Mare had not talked about their business here.
Except for one person. This was a young man who stared silently at them as they went by, as if suspecting something.
“Oh, bleep,” Mindy said when they were alone. “I wonder if that was Brant?”
“What if it was? He’s harmless now, as he must have discovered last night.”
“Except for one horrible dream.”
That gave Bryce a chill. “We’d better be prepared to fight off dragons.”
“What if they’re at the Gap Chasm, where we have to go?”
“That could be a problem,” he agreed. “But forewarned is forearmed, as they say in Mundania.”
She glanced across at him. “If I get torn apart by dragons, I’ll never forgive you for ignoring me last night.”
That was gallows humor. “I’ll find a way to stop them,” he said with more confidence than he felt.
He brooded on it as they rode. One dragon might be balked by a pineapple tossed into its mouth, but the dream had several dragons. His pen could make only one thing at a time. What would stop several at once? He racked his old brain.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the Gap,” Bryce said.
“I was joking. Of course we have to go there, so you can get your Object.”
“I may not be able to get it anyway. I don’t want to risk you regardless, but how much worse to do so in a futile pursuit.”
“You have to try. That’s the whole point of the Quest. You let all the other Suitors take Objects you could have had. Now it’s your turn. I’d really never forgive myself if I denied you that. I’m supposed to be helping you, not interfering.”
He felt a warm surge of emotion at her loyalty to the mission. “Maybe you’re right. But if we see dragons, we’re getting out of there.”
“Okay.” She sounded relieved by the compromise, understandably.
He continued to ponder as they traveled. How could a single man with a ten-second glimpse of the future and a magic pen deal with multiple dragons? Finally he got a notion. It required precision and timing, but ought to work. But he hoped there would be no dragon attack.
Maybe his future sight could help. Ten seconds wasn’t much, but on occasion it had made a real difference. Suppose he changed his mind after that ten-second warning, and did something else in one second? Would the sight change?
That intrigued him. “Mindy, I may be wasting my own time, but I want to experiment with my second sight, just in case. I’m going to ride off the path, but change my mind.”
“But then you won’t do it, will you?”
“That’s the point. I want to see how my second sight reacts. I’m warning you so that you know I’m not as crazy as it may look.”
“Maybe I can help you. You can decide not to kiss me, then change your mind.”
He laughed. “I’ll keep it in mind.” He veered to the right and invoked his left eye.
It showed him crashing into the adjacent brush lining the path. It didn’t upend him, because the trike could handle it, but it was thick going.
He corrected his steering. His second sight changed immediately, showing no crash. So it did track changes on an ongoing basis.
“Let’s stop and kiss,” he said, knowing that would please her despite her awareness that it was only an experiment.
She halted immediately and got off her trike. She stood expectantly. He got off his trike and approached her. His second sight showed him kissing her. Immediately he changed his mind, and the kiss vanished.
Then it reappeared, even though he had not changed his mind again. Mindy was stepping in to him. Oho!
He turned his face away as she embraced him. The left eye showed her standing there, disappointed. Then he changed his mind, and the kiss resumed. He did kiss her.
“It works,” he said.
“Oh, I know!”
“I mean the changes in the second sight.”
“That, too,” she agreed.
They both laughed. But it was significant. His second sight was more responsive than he had thought, and that might make a big difference in some sensitive situation. Such as where to stand when a dragon breathed fire at him.
“Let’s move on,” he said.
“Must we?” But she disengaged and returned to her trike.
They resumed pedaling. Bryce was struck again by how nice a girl Mindy was. She had the misfortune to have gotten a crush on him, but she was handling it with grace, and she really was being helpful.
They came to the Gap Chasm. It was as awesome a gulf as ever. “We’re here,” Bryce said. “But I see no Object.”
“Maybe it’s on the other side.”
“That means we’ll have to cross.”
“I know. Make a big carpet, and hold me tightly.”
He did so. They folded and stored the trikes, then Bryce sat in the center, and Mindy sat before him, closing her eyes tightly. He put his arms around her and willed the carpet forwar
d.
It lifted and floated over the brink. There were no clouds and no dragons. All was serene, and soon they landed on the north verge. “We’re across,” he said gently.
She relaxed. “Thank you. I hate being such a burden. I just—heights—”
“I understand. Now let’s see what offers.”
And there before them was a pedestal with a cushion. On the cushion was a lens with a handle.
“What is it?” Mindy asked.
“It looks like a monocle. That’s like mundane glasses, only with just one lens. They are used at operas to enlarge the view of a distant stage, as I understand it. I’m not sure what use one would be in Xanth.”
She picked it up and looked through it. “It doesn’t magnify.”
“Maybe it clarifies. Try looking at me.”
She peered at him through the monocle. “Oh!” She reeled as if dizzy.
“What’s the matter?”
“You—I think I saw into your mind, but it was so complicated I got lost.”
“My mind?”
“You try it on me.” She proffered the lens.
He took it and looked at her. Her face seemed to fuzz, and he suddenly felt girlish. He saw her face, but also felt her mood, which was one of recent fear and present confusion.
“You’re right,” he said. “This lens sees beyond the face, into the mind. But it’s so general as to be useless.”
“Maybe it sees the truth,” she said. “Here, I’ll speak a lie.”
“A lie?”
“Remember that game with Anna?”
“Oh. Yes. The opposite of what you mean.”
“I am a naughty boy.”
Looking at her through the monocle, he picked up her surface meaning: boy meant girl. “It does seem to work.”
“I love heights.”
Bryce felt a shudder of aversion. She hated heights. “Somehow the image becomes a thought,” he said.
“Let me try it again.” This time there was no distortion; she was making an honest request.
He gave her the monocle. She oriented it on him. “Say some things I don’t know about, some true, some false.”
“Back in Mundania I had three children, two girls and a boy.”
“Reversed,” she said. “Two boys and a girl. It flickered at the untruth, but it also let me into your mind so I could fathom it without guessing or analyzing.”
They experimented further, verifying the powers of the monocle. “The princess could use this when dealing with other rulers,” Bryce said. “She would know not only when they were lying, but their whole mind-set. It would be invaluable.”
“It’s a worthy gift,” she agreed.
He shrugged. “I’ll take it.”
The monocle vanished, along with the pedestal. The game was on.
“But where is it?” Mindy asked.
Bryce looked around. “That little cloud in the chasm—was that there before?”
“I don’t know. I never looked.”
Oh, of course. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. It looks as if the pedestal is on it, and the monocle must be on the pedestal. All I need to do is to fly out there and take it.”
“I’ll bet it doesn’t just float there and wait for you.”
“The Challenge may be to catch it,” he agreed. “It may disappear when I approach, and reappear behind me. Something like that. All I can do is fly out there and try.”
“Yes. I’ll wait here.”
“Of course.” It was his mission, and she could not brave the awful depth of the chasm. He hugged her, then got on the carpet and floated out toward the little cloud.
Sure enough, when he approached it, it dodged away as if repelled by his presence. He tried looping around, but it dodged another way. He needed to find a way to attract it rather than repel it.
He got an idea. He sailed up above the level of the cloud and came to hover directly over it. The cloud wavered but did not dart away, as if confused. It evidently oriented on the horizontal, not the vertical. Could he drop down and catch it? It surely would not be that easy, but perhaps he was making progress.
There was a scream. He looked. It was Mindy.
Because three dragons were winging rapidly toward her, rising out of the shadow of the chasm.
He knew what that meant. The deathwish dream.
Bryce propelled his carpet toward Mindy. But he saw he would not get there in time. The dragons were moving faster.
He set his carpet on cruise control, as it were, and brought out his pad and pen. He quickly sketched a box with speaker holes on the sides and a big button in the center of the top. He hoped that it worked as he meant it to, once he invoked it. It was about his only chance to save her.
The leading dragon swooped toward Mindy. She tried to run from it, but had no chance. It caught her in its talons just as Bryce reached the brink. She screamed piercingly, but could not escape.
“Invoke!” he said. The picture slid off the page as the carpet dissolved, dumping him on the ground.
The dragon pumped its wings and heaved Mindy off the ground as Bryce ran up. He was just too late, not that he could have wrested her from the dragon anyway.
He oriented his second sight. He was ready to throw the box, but saw that it would miss within ten seconds. He reoriented, but it missed again. He tried a third and a fourth time in as many seconds, getting it right. “Catch!” he called, and heaved it up underhanded.
Mindy saw him. She saw the box coming toward her. She reached out and caught it, first in his second sight, then in the present as it came true. So far so good. She had trusted him to know what he was doing, even if it seemed irrelevant to her at the moment.
But the dragon was already carrying her out over the chasm. Its two companions were converging, claws extended, ready to tear the morsel apart. Bryce had been narrowly focused on the transfer of the box. Now he had to deal with the dragons.
“Push the button!” Bryce yelled.
She saw the button. She jammed her thumb down on it.
Nothing seemed to happen. But abruptly the two other dragons rocked as if struck by something invisible, and the one carrying Mindy shuddered.
“It’s a dragon repeller!” Bryce called. “It radiates a sound only they can hear, that hurts their ears. They must flee it.”
“But this one can’t escape it without dropping me!” she cried, terrified.
“No. It doesn’t realize the source. You must steer it. When it happens to fly toward the brink, turn off the box.”
“But then it won’t repel the dragon!”
“Yes. Trust me.”
“I do!” But she remained understandably terrified.
The dragon swerved in its effort to escape the awful sound. For a moment it was going toward the edge. “Now!” Bryce called.
Mindy pushed the button. The dragon abruptly stopped reacting and smoothed out its flight. It looped back toward the center of the chasm.
“Button!” Bryce yelled.
She was already on it. The dragon reacted as if it had just smacked into a wall. It reared back, which was a good trick in midair. Then, perhaps remembering where it had been free of pain, it started flying back toward the brink.
Mindy pushed the button.
The dragon wasn’t stupid. Very quickly it learned that there was just one direction that made it pain-free. It flew toward the edge.
“Now bring it down,” Bryce called. “You know how.”
Mindy did. The moment the dragon started lifting, on came the repeller. The moment it dropped, off it came. Surprisingly soon it came in for a landing on the ground.
“Let me go!” Mindy said, giving it a one-second nudge. The claws relaxed, allowing her to step free. “Now fly away,” she said.
The dragon needed no second urging. It leaped into the air and fled.
Mindy ran and flung herself into Bryce’s arms. Only then did she collapse in a nervous breakdown. He held her, immensely relieved that his ploy had worked. He had
saved her, literally, from being torn to pieces by dragons. He had voided the curse of the deathwish.
Soon Mindy recovered her emotional balance. She was good in that respect. “But you lost the Monocle,” she said.
Indeed, the little cloud with its pedestal was gone. “There was no choice,” Bryce said.
“It’s my fault! I messed up your Quest!”
“I’m not sure you did. I suspect the Challenge was to save you and get the Monocle. I failed to rise to the whole of it.”
“But if I had hidden from the dragons, you could have gotten it.”
“Not if the Demons set it up to make it impossible to separate the two.”
“How could you have done both?”
Bryce considered, still holding her. “Maybe if I had drawn a basilisk, it could have stunned both cloud and dragons.”
“And me,” she said sourly. “What about this: could you have drawn the Monocle and animated it before the dragons arrived?”
Bryce’s mouth dropped open. “I wonder.”
“Maybe it’s not too late.”
He let her go and brought out pen and pad. He drew the lens with the handle, and activated it. It slid off the page and he caught it. Had they found a way?
But when they tested it, it turned out to be an ordinary lens, with no magic. Perhaps if he had drawn it earlier, before the dragons came, he could have had the real one, then focused on dispersing the dragons. He had missed his chance.
“Well, let’s return,” he said heavily.
“But without the Monocle, you have nothing to give the princess.”
“So one of the other Suitors will win her,” Bryce said. “They are worthy. I will go and report my failure.”
“I don’t think you failed.”
She was trying to console him. “Thanks. At any rate, I want to see you safely back.”
“What will you do after it is decided?”
“Probably return to Caprice Castle and help them gather puns. I’m sure they will appreciate it.”
“They will,” she agreed. “Dull as it is. Oh, Bryce, I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be. I wasn’t planning to marry the princess anyway, even if she asked me, which she wouldn’t.”
“You keep saying that. But Anna said she likes you.”