Centaur Aisle (27 page)

"If we're in the wrong Mundane century," Irene said, "how do we get to him?"

"We should be required to return to Xanth and undertake a new mission to that century. As I mentioned, it seems feasible to determine the temporal locale from Xanth, and once in that aspect of Mundania, we would be fixed in it until returning to Xanth. However, this procedure is fraught with uncertainties and potential complications."

"I should think so," Dor said. "If we figured it wrong, we might get there before he did."

"Oh, I doubt that would happen, other than on the macroscopic scale, of course."

"The what?" Dor asked.

"I believe the times are consistent in particular circumstances. That is to say, within a given age, we could enter Mundania only with an elapsed period consonant with that of Xanth. Therefore—"

"We might miss by a century, but not by a day," Grundy said.

"That is the essence, golem. The particular channels appear to be fixed—"

"So let's go find the century!" Irene said, brightening. "Then all we'll need is the place."

"With appropriate research, the specific geography should also be evident."

"Then let's go find your archives," she said.

"Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of this period," Arnolde reminded her. "We are hardly likely to locate a suitable facility randomly."

"I can help there," Dor said. "It should be where there are a lot of people, right?"

"Correct, King Dor."

"Uh, better not call me King here. I'm not, really, and people might find it strange." Then Dor addressed the sand. "Which way to where most people live?"

"How should I know?" the sand asked.

"You know which direction most of them come from, and where they return."

"Oh, that. They mostly go north."

"North it is," Dor agreed.

They marched north, and in due course encountered a Mundane path that debouched into a road that became a paved highway. No such highway existed in Xanth, and Dor had to question this one closely to ascertain its nature. It seemed it served to facilitate the travel of metal and rubber vehicles that propelled themselves with some sort of magic or whatever it was that Mundanes used to accomplish such wonders. These wagons were called "cars," and they moved very rapidly.

"I saw something like that belowground," Grundy said. "The demons rode in them."

Soon the party saw a car. The thing zoomed along like a racing dragon, belching faint smoke from its posterior. They stared after it, amazed. "Fire it send from wrong end," Smash said.

"Are you sure there's no magic in Mundania?" Grundy asked. "Even the demons didn't have firebreathers."

"I am not at all certain," Arnolde admitted. "Perhaps they merely have a different name and application for their magic. I doubt it would operate for us. Perhaps this is the reason we believe there is no magic in Mundania— it is not applicable to our needs."

"I don't want any part of that car," Irene said. "Any dragon shooting out smoke from its rear is either crazy or has one awful case of indigestion! How could it fight? Let's find our archives and get out of here."

The others agreed. This aspect of Mundania was certainly inverted. They avoided the highway, making their way along assorted paths that paralleled it. Dor continued to query the ground, and by nightfall they were approaching a city. It was a strange sort of settlement, with roads that crisscrossed to form large squares, and buildings all lined up with their fronts right on the edges of the roads, so that there was hardly room for any forest there, jammed in close together. Some were so tall it was a wonder they didn't fall over when the wind blew.

Dor's party camped at the edge of the city, under a large umbrella tree Irene grew to shelter them. The tree's canopy dipped almost to the ground, concealing them, and this seemed just as well. They were not sure how the Mundanes would react to the sight of an ogre, golem, or centaur.

"We have gone as far as we can as a group," Dor said. "There are many people here, and few trees; we can't avoid being seen any more. I think Irene and I had better go in and find a museum—"

"A library," Arnolde corrected him. "I would love to delve eternally in a Mundane museum, but the information is probably most readily accessible in a library."

"A library," Dor agreed. He knew what that was, because King Trent had many books in his library-office in Castle Roogna.

"However, that is academic, no pun intended," the centaur continued. "You can not go there without me."

"I know I'll step out of magic," Dor said. "But I won't need to do anything special. Nothing magical. Once I find the library for you—"

"You have no certainty you can even speak their language," Arnolde said curtly. "In the magic ambience, you can; beyond it, this is problematical."

"I'm not sure we speak the same language in our own group, sometimes," Irene said with a smile. "Words like 'ambience' and 'problematical'—"

"I can speak their language," Grundy said. "That's my talent. I was made to translate."

"A magical talent," Arnolde said.

"Oooops," Grundy said, chagrined. "Won't work outside the aisle."

"But you can't just walk in to the city!" Dor said. "I'm sure they aren't used to centaurs."

"I would have to walk in to use the library," Arnolde pointed out. "Fortunately, I anticipated such an impediment, so obtained a few helpful spells from our repository. We centaurs do not normally practice inherent magic, but we do utilize particular enchantments on an
ad hoc
basis. I have found them invaluable when on field trips to the wilder regions of Xanth." He checked through his bag of spells, much the way Irene checked through her seeds. "I have with me assorted spells for invisibility, inaudibility, untouchability, and so forth. The golem and I can traverse the city unperceived."

"What about the ogre?" Dor asked. "He can't exactly merge with the local population either."

Arnolde frowned. "Him, too, I suppose," he agreed distastefully. "However, there is one attendant liability inherent in this process—"

"I won't be able to detect you either," Dor finished.

"Precisely. Some one of our number must exist openly, for these spells make the handling of books awkward; our hands would pass right through the pages. My ambience of magic should be unimpaired, of course, and we could remain with you—but you would have to do all the research unassisted."

"He'll never make it," Irene said.

"She's right," Dor said. "I'm just not much of a scholar. I'd mess it up."

"Allow me to cogitate," Arnolde said. He closed his eyes and stroked his chin reflectively. For a worried moment Dor thought the centaur was going to be sick, then realized that he had the wrong word in mind. Cogitate actually referred to thinking.

"Perhaps I have an alternative," Arnolde said. "You could obtain the assistance of a Mundane scholar, a qualified researcher, perhaps an archivist. You could pay him one of the gold coins you have hoarded, or perhaps a diamond; I believe either would have value in any frame of Mundania."

"Uh, I guess so," Dor said doubtfully.

"I tell you, even with help, he'll foul it up," Irene said. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier compliments on Dor's performance. That was one of the little things about her—selective memory. "You're the one who should do the research, Arnolde."

"I can only, as it were, look over his shoulder," the centaur said. "It would certainly help if I could direct the manner he selects references and turns the pages, as I am a gifted reader with a fine memory. He would not have to comprehend the material. But unless I were to abort the imperceptibility spells, which I doubt very much would be wise since I have no duplicates—"

"There's a way, maybe," Grundy said. "I could step outside the magic aisle. Then he could see me and hear me, and I could tell him to turn the page, or whatever."

"And any Mundanes in the area would pop their eyeballs, looking at the living doll," Irene said. "If anyone does it, I'm the one."

"So they can pop their eyes looking up your skirt," the golem retorted, miffed.

"That may indeed be the solution," Arnolde said.

"Now wait a minute!" Irene cried.

"He means the messenger service," Dor told her gently.

"Of course," the centaur said. "Since we have ascertained that the aisle is narrow, it would be feasible to stand quite close while Dor remains well within the forward extension."

Dor considered, and it did seem to be the best course. He had somehow thought he could just go into Mundania, follow King Trent's trail by querying the terrain, and reach the King without much trouble. This temporal discontinuity, as the centaur put it, was hard to understand and harder to deal with, and the vicarious research the centaur proposed seemed fraught with hangups. But what other way was there? "We'll try it," he agreed. "In the morning."

They settled down for the night, their second in Mundania. Smash and Grundy slept instantly; Dor and Irene had more trouble, and Arnolde seemed uncomfortably wide awake. "We are approaching direct contact with Mundane civilization," the centaur said. "In a certain sense this represents the culmination of an impossible dream for me, almost justifying the personal damnation my magic talent represents. Yet I have had so many confusing intimations, I hardly know what to expect. This city could be too primitive to have a proper library. The denizens could for all we know practice cannibalism. There are so many imponderabilities."

"I don't care what they practice," Irene said. "Just so long as I find my father."

"Perhaps we should query the surroundings in the morning," Arnolde said thoughtfully, "to ascertain whether suitable facilities exist here, before we venture any farther. Certainly we do not wish to chance discovery by the Mundanes unless we have excellent reason."

"And we should ask where the best Mundane archivist is," Irene agreed.

Dor drew a word in the dirt with one finger: ONESTI. He contemplated it morosely.

"This is relevant?" the centaur inquired, glancing at the word.

"It's what King Trent told me," Dor said. "If ever I was in doubt, to proceed with honesty."

"Honesty?" Arnolde asked, his brow wrinkling at the dirt.

"I think about that a lot when I'm in doubt," Dor said. "I don't like deceiving people, even Mundanes."

Irene smiled tiredly. "Arnolde, it's the way Dor spells the word. He is the world's champion poor speller. O N E S T I: Honesty."

"ONESTI," the centaur repeated, removing his spectacles to rub his eyes. "I believe I perceive it now. A fitting signature for a King."

"King Trent's a great King," Dor agreed. "I know his advice will pull us through somehow."

Arnolde seemed almost to smile, as if finding Dor's attitude peculiar. "I will sleep on that," the centaur said. And he did, lying down on the dirt-scratched word.

In the morning, after some problems with food and natural functions in this semipublic locale, they set it up. The centaur dug out his collection of spells, each one sealed in a glassy little globe, and Dor stepped outside the aisle of magic while the spells were invoked. First the party became inaudible, then invisible; it looked as if the spot were empty. Dor gave them time to get through the unfeeling spell, then walked back onto the lot. He heard, saw, and felt nothing.

"But I can smell you," he remarked. "Arnolde has a slight equine odor, and Smash smells like a monster, and Irene is wearing perfume. Better clean yourselves up before we get into a building."

Soon the smells faded, and after a moment Irene appeared, a short distance away. "Can you see me now?"

"I see you and hear you," Dor said.

"Oh, good. I didn't know how far out the magic went. I'm still the same to me." She stepped toward him and vanished.

"You've gone again," Dor said, hastening to the spot where she had been. "Can you perceive me?"

"Hey, you're overlapping me!" she protested, appearing right up against him, so that he almost stumbled.

"Well, I can't perceive you," he said. "I mean,
now
I can, but I couldn't before. Can you see the others when you're outside the aisle?"

She looked. "They're gone! We can see and hear you all the time, but now—"

"So you'll know when I can see you by when you can't see them."

She leaned forward, and her face disappeared, reminding him of the Gorgon. Then she drew back. "I could see them then. I'm really in the enchantment, aren't I?"

"You're enchanting," he agreed.

She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him—but her face disappeared and he felt nothing.

"Now I have to go find a library and a good archivist," he said, disgruntled, as she reappeared. "If you're with me, stay away from me."

She laughed. "I'm with you. Just don't try to catch me outside the aisle." And of course that was what he should have done, if he really wanted to kiss her. And he did want to—but he didn't want to admit it.

She walked well to the side of him, staying clear of the enchantment. "No sense you getting lost."

They walked on into the city. There were many cars in the streets, all zooming rapidly to the intersections, where they screeched to stops, waited a minute with irate growls and constant ejections of smoke from their posteriors, then zoomed in packs to the next intersections. They seemed to have only two speeds: zoom and stop. There were people inside the cars, exactly the way Grundy had described with the demon vehicles, but they never got out. It was as if the people had been swallowed whole and were now being digested.

Because the cars were as large as centaurs and moved at a constant gallop when not stopped, Dor was wary of them and tried to avoid them. But it was impossible; he had to cross the road sometime. He remembered how the nefarious Gap Dragon of Xanth lurked for those foolish enough to cross the bottom of the Gap; these cars seemed all too similar. Maybe there were some that had not yet consumed people and were traveling hungry, waiting to catch someone like Dor. He saw one car stopped by the side of the street with its mouth wide open like that of a dragon; he avoided it nervously. The strangest thing about it was that its guts seemed to be all in that huge mouth—steaming tubes and tendons and a disk-shaped tongue. Oddest of all, it had no teeth. Maybe that was why it took so long to digest the people.