Knot Gneiss

  Except that the moment one pun obstacle was nullified, another took its place. Now they were balked by several ogres working in a garden. One was twisting young trees into knots. Another was squeezing juice from assorted colored stones. A third, an ogress so ugly that her face resembled the rear end of a cow with diarrhea, was pruning thorn bushes. But she was not using clippers or her bare hamhands. She was carefully squeezing juice on the stems, which promptly severed.

  Curious despite the danger, Wenda spoke to the ogress. “What is that you are using? It is very effective.”

  “Me use prune juice,” the ogress said, the second and fourth words jammed into unwilling rhymes. Ogres were rough on anything, physical or intellectual.

  Prune juice to prune. And why not? Ogres could squeeze juice out of anything. “Thank yew.”

  But this did not get them past the ogres, who blocked the way by no accident. What would distract ogres, who were justifiably proud of their stupidity?

  “I will look,” Hilarion said.

  “Take care,” Wenda said warily. In a Strip, it wasn’t just the obvious that was dangerous.

  He explored the vicinity, searching for suitable puns, knowing there was bound to be one if he could just fathom it and its relevance. But all he saw was a swarm of bees going about its business. It did not seem smart to mess with those.

  “Could bees sting ogres?” he asked musingly, then answered himself: “If the ogres even felt it on their horny hides, they would simply smash the bees into oblivion. No chance there.”

  Yet there seemed to be nothing else. He studied the bees more closely. They did not seem to be gathering pollen for honey; instead they circulated around a metallic rod angling up from the ground. It was almost like a handle to some buried object or chamber.

  Cautiously, he touched it. “The bee lever!” he exclaimed. “Now I am a bee lever!”

  “A believer in what?” Wenda asked, not quite trusting this.

  “I believe I can lead us out of here,” he said. “We have merely to forge ahead with confidence.”

  “Unjustified confidence is dangerous,” Jumper said.

  “Not to a believer. My strength is as the strength of eight or nine, because my belief is pure.” Hilarion marched up to the ogres. “We are looking for a Sidewalk and two Doors,” he said. “Where are they?”

  Dully startled, the ogres hesitated. Then one pointed to the side, where there was a wall of bushes.

  “Thank you,” Hilarion said. He turned to the others. “This way.” He marched toward the bushes.

  “It is not like him to be rash,” Ida said, “so I will suppress my doubts for the nonce.”

  That seemed to be the best policy. Wenda and the others followed the prince.

  The bushes turned out to be illusion. Beyond them was—the Sidewalk.

  Wenda realized that Hilarion had played on the natural stupidity of the ogres. He had asked them a direct question, and they had been unable to think of a reason not to answer it. The bee lever had given him the confidence to do it. Such a ploy could work only once, if at all, but he had done it.

  Jumper and Wenda slowly pulled the wagon to the Sidewalk, half expecting it to fade out as more illusion. But it held its place, and soon they were on it. “Turn to the right,” Wenda said, conscious of the way they had gotten reversed once before. She wanted never to have to go through this again.

  They sidled to the right and came up to the Door. Wenda opened it, and helped push the wagon through. The others crowded after.

  But Wenda, having learned caution the hard way, made one more check: a head count. There were six.

  But their party now numbered seven. Who was missing?

  It was Merwyn. Inexperienced, he evidently had not realized the importance of staying together.

  “I will find him,” Meryl said.

  “No. Yew hold the Door open,” Wenda said. “I will find him.” Because she knew she was the least likely person to get lost in the awful mass of puns. She would not be distracted at all.

  She went, stood on the walk, and looked around. There was only the hedge of illusory bushes. She would have to go through it. That was risky.

  “Silk!” Jumper said. “Take a line!” He extended a leg with a gob of spider silk on it. “So you can’t get lost.”

  “Thank yew!” she said, taking it. Trust Jumper to come through again.

  She forged through the bushes, trailing the line, which spun neatly after her as the ball in her hand thinned. And there was Merwyn. He was facing a nymphlike figure, but wasn’t freaked out. Instead he was being violently ill, vomiting on the ground.

  “Merwyn!” Wenda called. “Come with me!”

  “I—can’t,” he gasped, heaving out whatever was left in his stomach. “All I can do is—heave.”

  “At the sight of a nymph?” Wenda demanded. “Ridiculous.”

  “No. Sickening,” he said. “She’s a flu-Z.”

  Wenda had heard of them. They were nymphs who delighted in flashing their panties, not to freak out men, but to give them flu-like symptoms. They delighted in sickening men to death, if they could. This one must have intercepted Merwyn as he was bringing up the rear, and taken him out with her stomach-flu magic. She was bending over, flashing her mottled bilious green panties, which had a large scarlet letter Z on them.

  It was time for firm action. Wenda could not be affected by such a sight, both because she was female and because she was wood. She strode to the flu-Z, picked her up, and hurled her into the grunge of ogres. She landed in her normal position, panties up.

  “See shee!” one male exclaimed, just before he got sick. Then the ogress swung her hamfist and knocked the flu-Z right out of the Strip. She knew how to handle competition.

  Wenda grabbed Merwyn’s hand and hauled him back the way she had come. The illusion hedge seemed to have put forth new branches to confuse her, and would have succeeded, except for the silk line. She followed that, tuning out most else.

  And there was the Sidewalk. She had been half afraid it would vanish behind her, as she did not know how long it remained in any one place.

  “Sidle,” she said urgently, guiding him. He shuffled along on his tail flukes, not really understanding. Fortunately he was still too sick to think for himself.

  She pushed him through the doorway, and followed. “All here?” she asked.

  “All present,” Jumper reassured her.

  She yanked the Door shut behind her and stood against it, her hollow wooden knees feeling as weak as flesh. “Then we are safe.”

  “Perhaps,” Hilarion said.

  Wenda did not much like the sound of that. “There is a problem?”

  “There may be,” Jumper said, rewinding the last of his ball of silk. “We are in very strange country.”

  “Just so long as it’s Xanth,” she said, “we can handle it.” Had she been less distracted, she might have wondered why the others lacked confidence.

  14

  MAIDENS

  Wenda gazed out across a small pleasant valley with a lake in the center, surrounded by giant trees. To one side was a little human village, and near it was an outlying collection of huts. There seemed to be just a single road out, passing through the village, around the lake, and between the steep slopes of a narrow pass.

  “What is strange about this country?” she asked.

  “We did a winged reconnaissance,” Meryl said. “That lake is a love spring. Those large trees are tangle trees or some closely related species; they’re not quite the same. The villagers … are weird.”

  “This is an isolated hamlet,” Wenda said. “They could have special conventions. It does knot matter, as we will knot be staying long.”

  “No one is leaving the valley,” Jumper said. “And the way the villagers interact with the trees—maybe you should see it for yourself. I found a spectacle bush and made a spyglass.” He handed her a crude tubular device with lenses at each end.

  She took it and peered through it. It ma
gnified the scene enormously. Suddenly she could see right into the village, as though the people were within speaking distance. They were oddly garbed, with shirts and flaring short skirts, male, female, and child alike. The tangle trees grew right around the village, yet the villagers did not seem concerned. “Must bee mock-tanglers,” Wenda said. She had encountered plants that mimicked more fearsome plants, for their own protection. The plants of the forest were just as varied and devious as were the creatures.

  “Keep watching,” Jumper said.

  She did. She saw a village man walk right under a tangle tree. The tree sent its tentacles down and wrapped them around the man, lifting him from the ground. The man did not struggle as the tree enfolded him in its foliage. He disappeared into it with seeming equanimity. That was indeed odd.

  “Drugs!” Wenda said. “Are the villagers drugged? Or is there a pacification spell?”

  “Not that we can see,” Jumper said. “Keep watching.”

  “But the tangler has eaten the man!”

  “Not exactly.”

  After a brief time, the foliage rustled and the man emerged. He seemed unchanged. The tentacles set him gently on the ground and withdrew. He walked back into the village.

  “It let him go!” Wenda exclaimed. “It did knot eat him!”

  “That is what is strange,” Jumper said. “We have seen several examples. The villagers seem to offer themselves to the trees, and the trees take them, then return them unharmed.”

  “This is knot the nature of tangle trees!” Wenda protested.

  “So we conclude that they are not exactly tanglers,” Jumper said. “But surely closely related.”

  “Why should the tree even take the villager, if it’s knot going to eat him?”

  “That is the mystery,” Hilarion said. “We do not care to enter that village until we understand.”

  “Lest it turn out that the trees inspect all passers, but eat only strangers,” Ida said.

  That did make a kind of sense. “I agree,” Wenda said. “This is a strange country.”

  “We note that those outlying shacks are not near the trees,” Merwyn said. “We might talk with those folk.”

  But he was looking pale and weak from his siege of Z flu. “I will dew it,” Wenda said.

  “We did not mean for you to risk yourself,” Meryl said. “Merwyn and I can do it, and fly away if there is danger.”

  “No. It is my responsibility. I wood knot have someone else take such a risk.”

  “Then I will go with you, to guard you,” Hilarion said.

  She was constrained to agree. She had seen how expertly he used his sword. The two of them walked down to the shacks, which were not far, being at the edge of the valley.

  They reached the closest shack. “Hello!” Wenda called.

  A man emerged. She was relieved to see that he was conventionally garbed, rather than skirted. “Ah—new refugees,” he said. “You must be perplexed.”

  “We are,” Wenda said. “I am Wenda Woodwife, and this is Hilarion. We landed here randomly, and wonder about the villagers and the trees.”

  “I will explain about them in due course,” the man said. “But first I would prefer to get to know you. Let’s exchange stories.”

  “Briefly,” Hilarion said.

  “Briefly,” the man agreed.

  “I am on a mission for the Good Magician, to deliver a boulder of petrified reverse wood,” Wenda said. “I have several companions. We used a magic portal that put us here. Now we are knot sure it is safe to use the trail out of this valley.”

  “You are correct to be wary,” the man agreed. “I am Michael. I was once a carefree adolescent, doing whatever evoked my fancy. I discovered a giant trapeze, so my friends and I were using it to swing through the air. But suddenly I was attacked by a hot tomato. It splattered my shirt, setting me afire. I fell, burning, only to be struck by a boulder hit by a baseball-playing ogre using an ironwood tree as a bat. Scorched and broken, I fell into a healing spring I hadn’t known about. That enabled me to recover, and soon I was back on my feet. But the experience left me with two things that changed my life. First, I now have the talent to heal with my hands, having absorbed so much of the elixir. Second, I am trapped in this valley, unable to escape.”

  “What it is that stops you from departing?” Hilarion asked.

  “That is the thing about this valley,” Michael said. “Have you noticed how a few of us reside apart from the regular villagers?”

  “This is why we approached yew,” Wenda said. “There is something strange about those villagers.”

  “There is indeed.”

  “It occurred to us that the tangle trees might spare villagers but eat strangers,” Hilarion said.

  “Not so. They will treat you exactly the same. You are in no physical danger here.”

  “No physical danger?”

  “There’s the rub. Some few of us do not care to be subjected to the emotional danger entailed.”

  “Emotional danger?”

  “You have seen the villager apparel? Not for nothing is the village named Scoop.”

  “They all wear skirts. Even the men.”

  “Precisely. And nothing under those skirts.”

  “Why?” Wenda asked.

  “It facilitates production for the trees.”

  “I dew knot understand.”

  “At some time in the past near a love spring a tangle tree crossed with a call-to-nature bush. The result was a crossbreed we call the toilet tree. That variety prefers animal manure. Am I clear?”

  “No,” Wenda said.

  “It is the normal custom for all animals, including people, to eat, drink, and produce natural wastes. The trees crave those wastes. So they trade security for those wastes.”

  “I still dew knot—”

  “Poop!” Hilarion exclaimed. “From Scoop!”

  “Precisely. The tree collects it and lets the person go. It seems to be a compatible exchange, for those who are amenable. Some of us are not.”

  Wenda found herself blushing as she figured it out, though in her present state she was not vulnerable to the tree’s demands. “So when the tree picked up that man, it made him … give it his wastes. That was all it wanted.”

  “We would not care to become part of that system,” Hilarion said.

  “Unfortunately you will not have much choice. The trees guard the exit trail. They intercept anyone trying to use it. They have elixirs that will make any person perform urgently. They will hold him suspended until he performs. So to try to depart is to find oneself abruptly contributing. If his clothing interferes, too bad. Then they put the emptied person back in the village. That is why we don’t try to escape, though we wish we could. It is a matter of emotional preference.”

  “But we have a mission to complete,” Wenda protested.

  “The trees don’t care. They see people as mere content providers.”

  “Thank yew,” Wenda said tightly. “We must return to our group and consult.”

  “Welcome,” Michael said. “If you find a way to escape without humiliation, by all means let us know. We will be happy to cooperate in any way we can.”

  Wenda and Hilarion returned to the group and explained the situation. “This is disgusting,” Ida said.

  “We must find a way safely out,” Jumper said. “Three of us can fly, but the rest of us need a strategy.”

  They discussed it, and Meryl came up with a suggestion. “That’s a love spring in the center,” she said. “Suppose those of us who can fly take buckets and carefully dip out the elixir, then dump it on the trees and villagers? It may make them both eager to interact in their special manner, and that could distract them long enough for us to use the trail out.”

  “That could work,” Ida said, though she looked a bit pained. This was not the kind of subject princesses normally discussed, and the idea was far-fetched. But it was possible that the trees and villagers had a particular kind of love of their own. Ida’s a
greement made it more likely.

  “Let’s dew it,” Wenda agreed. It might be risky, but no more so than remaining captive of the valley.

  The three fliers flew down to talk to the nonvillagers, and soon were able to borrow buckets. Meanwhile the four groundbound members of the party eased the malign Knot down the slope to the shacks. “Dew knot be afraid of Jumper,” Wenda said. “He is a tame spider.”

  “Thank you for advising us,” Michael said, maintaining his distance from the spider. “Here are the other valley captives: Shenita Life Guard, whose talent is to warn people of trouble next day, so they can escape it. But she can’t warn of trouble today, or warn a person more than once. So far she has been confined to warning us against attempting the escape.”

  “But if you can do it today, maybe it will work,” Shenita said. She was a well-structured woman, evidently used to helping out at beaches. Wenda wondered how she had gotten trapped here. Maybe her talent did not apply to herself. “I did not see you coming, because you are not bringing trouble.”

  “And Metro Gnome,” Michael continued, indicating a gnome. “He is very time-oriented.”

  The gnome nodded, his motions precisely timed.

  “And Care,” Michael said, introducing a cautious-looking woman. “As long as you walk with her, nothing bad happens.”

  “But evidently fate does not consider what the trees do with villagers to be bad,” Care said.

  “Still, it will bee good to know that other bad things can knot happen,” Wenda said.

  The three fliers were up in the sky. They flew over the trees and dumped their buckets, whose liquid twisted, spread out, and became writhing clouds that splatted into the foliage. Then the three flew down to the lake and dipped again.

  “We must wait until they finish with the villagers,” Wenda said. Because of course they did not want their own party to get doused.

  The three doused the villagers. Immediately they flocked to the trees and were taken in by the tentacles and foliage. “Now,” Wenda said.

  They moved smartly along, pulling and pushing on the wagon. The un-villagers wanted to help, but could not bring themselves to get close to the Knot. Hilarion, Jumper, and Ida had built up a certain tolerance, though they did not look comfortable.