Heaven Cent (7 page)

They paused for lunch. Dolph's sandwiches were gone, but he didn't really need them; he simply changed to an ant and consumed a segment of a leaf. He did not like green salad in ant form much better than he did in boy form, but anything would do when he was hungry enough. That was another thing he was learning during this adventure: there were times when it just wasn't worthwhile to be too fussy about food.

Then they commenced their search for the Heaven Cent. They were not sure exactly what it looked like, but hoped they would know it when they found it. Dolph knew that in Mundania there was a small magic copper coin called a cent; it wasn't supposed to be worth much, but it was pretty when shined. He thought the Heaven Cent might be a very big, bright cent. Just how it would help him find the Good Magician he wasn't sure, but he would figure that out when he got hold of it. The Magician's message made it clear that he needed the cent: SKELETON KEY TO HEAVEN CENT. This was the key made of a skeleton, so the cent had to be here. He hoped.

The vast illusion covered the isle. They did not know in what building the cent might be, so they had to check each in turn until they found it. Because it might be covered by a wall, they had to poke their hands through the walls too, feeling for anything round. Mostly what they found was weeds: without the fantasy city, this island would be just a weed-ridden lump.

The job soon became tedious. Dolph wished there were a faster, easier way to do it, but he couldn't think of any. He tried changing to hound form, so that his superior nose could sniff out the cent, but he didn't know what it smelled like, so that didn't help. He assumed eagle form, in the hope that his sharp eyes would pierce the illusion, but they only made its detail clearer. It was easiest to keep his own form, so mat he could use his hands to check for what he could not see.

He stepped through one more wall—and spied a woman. She was tall and well proportioned in the adult fashion, with hair as black as midnight and skin as white as midday.

Dolph jumped back through the wall. He remembered his experience with Vida Vila, who really wasn't bad once he had gotten to know her, but mat threat of mushy sniff had really turned him off. This new woman looked like the kind who was good at mush, so he was wary of her. Fortunately, she had been facing away from him, so had not seen him.

He hurried across to where Marrow was working.

“There's a woman!” he whispered to the living man that Marrow appeared to be. “Between the buildings!”

Marrow considered. “Is she a real woman or an illusory woman?”

Dolph hadn't thought of that. “I—don't really know. She looked real, but—” He shrugged.

“She might be a monster, made to look human. I had better investigate.”

“Yes,” Dolph said, relieved.

They went to the region where Dolph had seen the woman, and poked their heads cautiously through the wall. There she was, moving along the wall further along, her hands poking into it. She seemed to be looking for something.

“I shall approach her,” Marrow said. “But I shall not divulge very much about myself until I know her nature. She could be dangerous.”

Dolph nodded agreement. The illusion made everything uncertain.

Marrow stepped through, while Dolph watched from the wall. Marrow approached the woman. “Hello,” he said.

“Eeeek!” the woman cried, jumping.

“Who are you?” Marrow asked.

The woman backed away from him. “I didn't know anyone else was here! You alarmed me.”

“Or perhaps I should inquire what are you,” Marrow said. "Are you what you seem to be?”

“No. Are you what you seem to be?”

“Not exactly. What is your name?”

“Tell me yours.”

Marrow paused. “I am trying to ascertain whether you are dangerous. If you do not cooperate, I shall have to assume that you are.”

“That is exactly the way I feel about you,” the woman said.

“Then answer my questions, and I shall answer yours. What is your name?”

“Gracile Ossein. Grace'l for short. What is yours?”

“Marrow Bones. What is your nature?”

“I am a skeleton. What is yours?”

“1 am a skeleton. Where—”

“Now I know you are trying to fool me!” she exclaimed. “You are pretending to be what I am!”

“I suspect it is the other way around,” Marrow said stiffly. “There are no female skeletons in Xanth.”

“There weren't until I stepped out of the gourd. I am the only skeleton stranded out here. Now what is your nature, really?”

“Let us clasp hands, and we shall quickly verify each other's natures,” Marrow suggested.

“No! You may be a bone-crunching monster!”

“As you may be,” Marrow retorted. “If I had been that, I would have pounced on you from behind.”

She nodded. “True. Very well, we shall touch hands.”

They extended their hands. Slowly the two approached. Then they touched. Then they clasped.

“You are skeletal!” they exclaimed together.

Dolph decided it was safe to emerge from hiding. “She really is like you?” he asked.

“Is this another of our kind?” Grace'l asked.

“No,” Marrow said. “He is human. The illusion does not affect him.”

Then they were happily talking. Dolph was immensely relieved to know that Grace’l was neither a monster nor a mushy woman. They explained what they were doing here, and Grace’l explained how she was looking for the gourd that she had stepped out from. “It was an accident; I only meant to travel to another setting, but I took the wrong exit and found myself in this strange place. At first I thought it was merely a new setting, and I walked through it, but then I realized it was not what it seemed, and I tried to go back—but I had lost the gourd. I have been here for days, trying to find it.”

“It's hard to find anything under all this illusion,” Dolph agreed. “I don't know how long it will take us to find the Heaven Cent.”

“What does it look like? I may have felt it in my search.”

“We don't know. But maybe like a big bright copper mundane penny.”

“Mundane? What's that?”

She had never before been outside the gourd; she had never heard of Mundania. They tried to explain, but she could not grasp it; it was too strange for her.

Then, abruptly, the illusion vanished. The three of them were standing on the weedy island.

“Grandma Iris took her talent back!” Dolph exclaimed.

Indeed it was so. The two skeletons were revealed in their bare bones; each had spoken truly. Marrow was taller, but Grace’l more rounded. Still, Dolph wasn't certain he could tell them apart, if he were to see them singly. “How can you tell boy from girl?” he asked.

The skeletons exchanged eyeless glances. “That is a trifle delicate to discuss,” Marrow said.

“Still, it is no secret,” Grace’l said. “I have more graceful bones and one more rib than he does.”

“One more rib?” Dolph asked, surprised.

“High G, the grace note,” she said.

Dolph remained baffled. “High gee?”

“Prince Dolph has not been exposed to skeletal history,” Marrow said. “Perhaps we should start from the beginning.”

“Very well,” she said. “If you will help me look for the gourd, I will tell the tale.”

“We can look for the Heaven Cent too!” Dolph said. He had the feeling that the skeletons were about to get into a long and dull discussion of some kind, and he didn't want to waste all that time.

“We shall all search for both,” Marrow agreed. “With the illusion gone, it should not be difficult to find whatever we want.”

So they started the search, walking three abreast, with Dolph in the middle, and the two skeletons took turns explaining about the G rib.

It seemed that long, long ago, when magic was new, the Demon X(A/N)th (or someone; Dolph wasn't quite clear about that) made the ordinary Land of Xanth for the ordinary creatures, and the gourd for the extraordinary creatures that the others could only dream about, and left the refuse to drear, unmagical Mundania. He put a kind of barrier around Xanth to keep the Mundanes mostly out, and sealed off the gourd realm by making it difficult for any ordinary creature to bring its body inside. In the very center of the gourd he made a fine cemetery, and there he put the first skeleton.

But this skeleton got lonely, for there were no others of his kind. So the Demon took one of his ribs and broke it into pieces, and the pieces grew and became the first female skeleton, complete in every detail. However, the male was no longer complete, because he was missing that one rib. Thus the female had one more rib than he, and so it was ever since.

The first two skeletons made beautiful music together, for their bones resonated each to a different key. Marrow could play over 200 notes, and Grace’l could play over 201 notes. It was the first skeleton's smallest rib that was missing, the one that played the highest note. From that time on, the female always had the higher range, and could always top the male by one note. The male missed that note, but was satisfied to have the female play it for him, which she did when appropriate.

“When is that?” Dolph asked.

Now they were silent. “Uh,” Marrow said at last, “when they want to reproduce.”

“You mean they play music to signal the stork?” Dolph asked, suddenly very interested. Maybe he could get a line on how flesh folk did it, too! If it was just a matter of playing a tune or singing a song, maybe a mushy (ugh!) love song—

“Not exactly,” Grace’l said, as diffident as Marrow. “We don't use storks; they are reserved for the living folk.”

“Oh? Then how do skeletons do it?”

“You would not care to know,” Marrow said.

Now Dolph was sure that the process was similar to the one living folk used mat was secret from children. “Sure I would!”

“It involves—mushy stuff.”

“Oh.” What a wet blanket! Just when it was getting interesting, too. But he had sort of known it would be something like that, because adults were entirely too interested in mush. Maybe age turned their brains mushy. What a fate!

They continued searching the isle, but neither gourd nor cent snowed up. “I fear the gourd has rotted,” Marrow said. “None remain on the isle. But there should be many on the mainland.”

“The mainland?” Grace’l asked. “You mean there's more?”

Dolph managed not to laugh. She really was innocent!

“Yes, this is but one island, and not the largest,” Marrow said. “Normal Xanth is actually a fairly extensive place, having perhaps as much room as the gourd.”

“Amazing!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea!” Then she turned to him. “How did you come to be here in Xanth?”

“I got on the Lost Path, so of course was lost. A man from Xanth found me, and brought me from the gourd. I confess it was a strange realm out here, but once I came to know it I found it interesting, and decided to stay. Certainly it is better than returning to the Lost Path.”

Her skull nodded. “I suppose so. But you should be able to avoid the Lost Path now, if you return in the company of one who is not lost.”

“That is true,” Marrow said. “But I have a duty here.”

“What duty is that?”

"I am the adult companion for Prince Dolph. I must see that he does not get into too much trouble, and help him find the Heaven Cent.”

She did not reply. They kept on searching, but as the sun dropped low, getting ready to set the distant trees on fire, they knew that neither gourd nor cent was to be found on the isle.

“It seems this was a false lead,” Marrow said with regret.

“But the Good Magician would not make a mistake!” Dolph protested. “His note said—”

“But it is possible that we erred in interpreting his note. I understand that his Answers could be at times obscure.”

“What was the message?” Grace’l asked.

“Skeleton Key to Heaven Cent, ” Dolph said. “And it read this way, toward the Isle of Illusion, so I thought this must be the right key, made from the skeleton of a coral.”

“That does seem to make sense. Are there other such keys?”

“A number,” Marrow said.

“Where are they?”

“To the south, all around the peninsula of Xanth.”

“So this is the end of a line of keys?”

“In a way,” Marrow agreed.

“Then maybe the Magician meant you should start here, and keep going until you found the right one,” she said.

“Say, maybe so!” Dolph agreed. He was getting to like Grace’l.

“But to search them all—” Marrow protested. “That could take a long time. I am not certain—”

“Perhaps there is another gourd on one of them,” Grace’l said.

Marrow glanced at her. The notion of traveling with her did not seem to bother him unduly.

“We could go by boat,” Dolph said. “Can you become a boat, Grace’l?”

“Of course,” she said. “Anybody can do that!”

So it was decided: they would travel together for a while, looking now for two things: cent and gourd. They were bound to find one of them. Dolph liked this development, because he felt more secure with two companions than with one.

In the morning they set off for the southern keys. There was a fairly brisk sea wind blowing in toward land, and that helped because Grace’l volunteered to become a sail. She said she could help them tack against that wind.

“Tacky?” Dolph asked.

“Tack. It is a way of sailing slantwise against the wind, even into the wind. I have done it on Castor Lake.”

Dolph felt a bad taste in his mouth. Castor oil was the stuff that leaked from castors when they rolled too far, and it tasted absolutely awful, which was why adults made children eat it. “There's a whole lake of that stuff?”

“Indeed there is,” she agreed. “It is used as the setting for the bad dreams of children.”

“I've had those dreams,” Dolph said grimly. “I don't think I'd like it in the gourd.”

“You aren't supposed to. Bad dreams are no good if people like them. No reputable night mare would carry a good dream.”

“Mare Imbri carried good dreams!” he said stoutly.

“You know Mare Imbri? She was a good mare, until she got half of someone's soul and kept it instead of turning it in. That ruined her, and she washed out of the business.”

“She's a day mare now,” Dolph said.

“Well, they don't have much substance. But I suppose if you like that type—”

“I sure like it better than what the night mares carry!”

“Kick me in the tailbone,” she invited him.

“Gladly!” He delivered a perfect kick. She exploded and fell into the form of a triangular outline of bones, with her skull at the base.

“Now kick me,” Marrow said.

Dolph did so. Marrow became the little craft he had been before. “Now lift the sail to the craft,” his skull said.

Dolph heaved up Grace’l’s sail, staggered to the boat, and clunked it down. Her skull opened its jaws and grabbed onto a crossbone. This anchored her form upright. Now the sail was in place.

“Haul us to the water,” Marrow's skull said. “Then jump in quickly, because when that wind catches us, we'll move well.”

Dolph hauled. A single skeleton did not weigh much, but the two together were all he could handle. He managed to get the boat to the water, which wasn't far distant. Then, as it hobbled, he grabbed his paddle and jumped in.

Just in time! The sail swung about of its own volition and caught the wind, and suddenly they were moving swiftly across the water. Dolph did not have to paddle at all; he just hung on to the bone rim and enjoyed it. He removed his knapsack and set it on the floor of the boat between the skull-seat and the sail pole; it should be safe there.

For a while he reveled in the sensation of motion across the water without effort, and watched the passing scenery. The Isle of Illusion fell behind, and the beach to the west moved resolutely to the rear, its sands and trees marching at an even pace. Closer in, the surface of the sea rippled, forming fringes of bubbly white froth at the cutting edges of the waves. The water was greenish where the morning sunbeams lighted it, and deepening gray and black below. What, he wondered, was down under there, that could not be seen from here?

The wind shifted, so that now it was coming from the southeast. Grace’l’s sail changed orientation, and the Marrow boat continued south.

Dolph looked at the sail. He was used to the magic of the skeletons, that enabled them to form useful alternate shapes and to hold out the water or the air as if the porous networks of bones were solid. But this magic of tacking— how could that be? They were moving almost toward the wind, and that did not make sense. Unless the tackiness caused the boat to be drawn in toward the wind, instead of being pushed away from it. Yes, that had to be it!

But that would represent another kind of talent. Marrow had said that the seemingly different talents of Vida Vila were actually merely aspects of a single talent, and maybe that was so, but this new type of magic of the skeletons seemed different.

“Are you sure you don't have two magic talents?” he asked Marrow. “Shape change and tacking?”

“Tacking is not skeleton magic,” the skull Dolph was sitting on responded. “Anyone can do it, if he knows how. I have heard that even the Mundanes can do it, though I confess I suspect that is an exaggeration. Certainly you could do it, with practice.”

“But my talent is form changing!”

“Some magic is independent, available to anyone who invokes it properly. Indeed, I understand that the Good Magician Humfrey, for whom we search, has no evident talent except the ability to locate other types of magic that he can use. If some other person could locate the same types of magic, that person could hold the same office.”

“He's the Magician of Information! No one else can do that!”

“Well, I am a creature of the gourd. Perhaps I have overlooked some aspect of the situation.”

“But if someone else could do it, what would happen to Humfrey?”

“I wouldn't know. But we must face the possibility that we may not find him."

“Never!” Dolph said.

“But certainly we have not yet exhausted our options. We shall search every key until we find the Heaven Cent.”

“The Heaven Cent?” a voice called from the side.

Dolph looked. There was a woman in the water, swimming beside them. He could see her face with its halo of hair, that was blinding yellow in the sunlight but seaweed green in the water. “Are you in trouble?” he called. “Do you need to get in the boat?”

She laughed merrily, and her shoulders rose out of the water, showing her breasts. Dolph really wasn't interested in such things, but he couldn't help staring; she was, as his mother would have put it, extremely well endowed. “I have no need of boats! Come join me in the water.”

“That sounds like a merwoman,” Marrow's skull remarked.

“It's sure a woman!” Dolph agreed.

“I would advise—”

“What's your name?” the woman called.

“Prince Dolph. What's yours?”

“—caution,” the skull concluded.

“Mela. Melantha for long. You're a prince?”

Now Dolph remembered the problem he had had with Vida Vila in the forest, who had been really taken with the notion of a prince. “Uh, well—”

“Let me get a look at you.” She swam close, and now he saw that below the waist her body was that of a fish. This was indeed a merwoman! “Why so you are! What a fortunate day for me!”

Dolph hesitated to ask her what she meant, so he changed the subject. “Do you know something about the Heaven Cent?”

Now she was going through her hair with a bright coral comb in her right hand, and holding a small ornate mirror up with her left. Dolph had not seen where these devices came from; they just seemed to have appeared. “Why certainly! Who wants to know?”

“I do! I'm looking for it.”

She gazed at him, cocking her head so that her golden hair fell lustrously to the side. Her mirror and comb sparkled; he thought for a moment that both were encrusted with jewels, but then saw that they were barnacles. “Perhaps if you join me in the water, I will tell you.”

“Do not go in the water!” the skull warned.

Dolph had already decided that this was not the time to swim. “Why don't you come in the boat and tell me?”

She grimaced prettily. “If you insist, Prince. But you will have to help me, for I can't climb very well.” Her comb and mirror disappeared. She flashed her flukes, sending up a considerable spray.

“Don't—” the skull began.

The merwoman swam close. “Is there someone in the boat with you?”

“Not exactly. It's—”

She lifted her arms. Her impressive breasts came out of the water too, causing him to gawk. “No matter. Take hold.”

“—let her get hold of you," Marrow concluded. Too late. Mela put her arms around his neck and hauled. Dolph tried to help lift her up, but she weighed more than he, and her arms were surprisingly strong, and she was instead pulling him down. He was trying to hold on to the boat with his legs, but the position wasn't good. In a moment he knew he would be in the water.

“Tack!” the skull cried.

The sail swung around suddenly, and the boat lurched. Mela was drawing Dolph's head and shoulders into her bosom, almost smothering him. The bottom of the sail collided with the merwoman's back, giving her a hard smack. She made an exclamation of pain and let go.

Dolph got himself back in the boat, out of harm's way. “You tried to pull me into the water!” he cried.

Mela shook her head, her hair throwing off yellow glints. “I've been knocked before, but never quite that way,” she said angrily.

“You wanted to drown me!” Dolph accused her.

She laughed, not as merrily as before. “Hardly that, Prince! I can enable you to breathe water. I want you with me. Come on in; your hair's all mussed. I'll comb it for you.” The barnacled comb reappeared in her hand.

“You said you knew about the Heaven Cent!”

“I do. Enough. I just prefer to tell you in my own domain. It is not comfortable for me out of the water.”

Dolph could believe that. He had not seen many fish that liked dry land, and she was a fish below.

“We must get away from her,” Marrow's skull warned.

“Let's go!” Dolph agreed. He had had quite enough of the merwoman's deception.

The sail swung around again and caught the wind. The craft resumed speed.

“Prince Dolph, I’m sorry!” Mela called, swimming alongside. “I'll tell you about the Heaven Cent, if you'll only listen.”

“I'll listen while I travel,” Dolph said grimly. He was developing a healthy aversion to women of all types, to match the aversion for girls that his big bossy sister had inculcated in him.

“Very well,” she agreed, having no trouble keeping up. Her tail was very good for swimming, so that she hardly needed to use her hands, and her pillowy breasts enabled her to float without effort. “The Heaven Cent in the past has cent folk to whomever it makes cents for them to meet, anywhere under the heavens. That's what it's for.”

It was an illumination. “That does make cents!” Dolph cried. “We want to find the Good Magician!”

“The Good Magician is missing?” she asked, interested.

“Yes, that's why we're looking for him. We will find 'he Heaven Cent on the Skeleton Key.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Because there is no Heaven Cent.”

“But you just said—”

“Silly boy! I told you how it has been used in the past. The effort of its great magic melts it down, and so it no longer exists after it has performed its function.”

“But—”

“So it has to be forged anew each time. That is the skeletal key to its use.”

“The—”

She laughed again. "How little you have understood your mission! Did you really think the skeleton key was a place?”

“I—” Dolph felt very foolish.

“She may have a point,” the skull said, disgruntled.

“But how can we make the Heaven Cent!” Dolph asked. “We don't know anything about that!”

“I do have one bit of information about that,” Mela said.

“You do? Tell us!”

“Come down to my abode below, and I will tell you, sweet Prince.”

“No!”

“I assure you I shall not mistreat you, Prince, I only want your company for a while.”

Again Dolph remembered the vila, whose interest turned out to be mushy. “I'm not good company.”

“Well, perhaps not right at the moment. But in time you will be excellent company, I'm sure. I'm willing to wait.”

Now Dolph was sure he wanted to get away from her. “No!”

“I can't cajole you?” Mela asked, frowning.

“No! Go away!”

“I will even sing you a nice song.”

“No!”

Now she frowned. “Then I will sing a song that is not so nice. You are making me unreasonable, Prince Dolph. That is not wise.”

“I'm not a wise person!” he retorted. “I'm just a boy!”

“And I am a merwoman. You have something to learn about my type.”

“I don't want to learn it!”

“I have set my sights on you, and I shall have you, delicious Prince.”

Dolph wasn't certain how she meant that, but none of the interpretations he could think of were very appealing. “Can we move faster?” he asked Marrow.

“Only if the wind picks up,” the skull replied.

But now the wind was dying. They were in a calm, at just the wrong time.

Melantha began to sing. Her voice was eerie. It sounded more like ghosts being blown by a gale than like music, yet it had a certain compelling quality. Dolph found himself wanting to be with her, despite his aversion to the notion.

But then the wind did pick up. In fact it became quite gusty. A shadow fell across the boat. Dolph looked up, and saw to his dismay that a storm was brewing.

“Of all the times for bad weather!” he exclaimed.

“It isn't exactly coincidence, you know,” Mela called from the heightening waves to the side.

“That's right!” the skull muttered. “They can summon storms.”

“We certainly can,” Mela called over the rising roar of wind and sea. "We have a deal with King Fracto, a mutual assistance pact.”

“I've heard of him,” the skull said. “He's the worst of clouds. Cumulo Fracto Nimbus. Always looking for mischief.”

“I'll tell him to go away, if you come to me,” Mela called.

“Don't deal with her!” the skull said. “We'll cut in to land, where we can escape her.”

The boat turned, angling for the beach.

Mela resumed her song. Immediately the storm intensified. The wind caught the sail and whipped it about. The boat tilted scarily.

“I don't like this,” the skull said. “We had better furl our sail.”

“I don't like it either,” Dolph said. “I'm getting seasick!”

“Not in my waters you don't!” Mela protested.

“I can't help it,” Dolph said, leaning over the side.

“If you do, you'll clean it up!” she cried, swimming close.

Dolph jerked back. He didn't want her to grab him again.

“Kick the sail!” the skull said.

Dolph realized that this was the only way Grace’l could change form. He stood up.

A sudden gust caught them. The boat was blown over on its side. Dolph, rising precariously to his feet, was pitched into the heaving sea.

He opened his mouth to scream, but his stomach was roiling so violently that what came out was no scream. It was a retch.