xanth 40 - isis orb (33 page)

“Folk can get sick in them, from their inversions and nonsense,” Quin said.

“In sum, a perfect challenge for our equilibrium,” Faro concluded.

Feline glanced at Hapless. “Time for you to make the decision.”

What could he do? “We’ll try it tomorrow.”

“We knew you’d come through.”

They had known he could be browbeaten into doing what they wanted. Yet it did seem to make sense. It should prepare them for their encounter with the goddess. Assuming they could be prepared.

They settled down to sleep. The two centaurs stood a bit apart, discussing Mundane Quantum Theory. Hapless couldn’t help overhearing part of it.

“It never made sense to me,” Faro said. “The idea that reality is not fixed until someone observes it. Where was the universe before anyone observed it?”

“No one ever accused the Mundanes of being unduly rational,” Zed said. “It is more devious that that. As I understand it, the universe exists in an infinite number of alternate possibilities. When we observe one, the alternates collapse into a single reality. Or it may be that at that point we recognize a single reality, abating our uncertainty. We make a snapshot, as it were, fixing it in place.”

“These are the same Mundanes who don’t believe in magic?” she asked cuttingly.

“I’m glad we live in Xanth.”

Their dialogue continued, but Hapless tuned it out. He did not have a centaur mind. He just wanted to rest.

Feline, Merge, and Myst boxed him in as usual, and he loved it as usual.

“You did well,” Feline whispered in his right ear, kissing it.

“Very well,” Merge whispered in his left ear, kissing it.

“Hey, you’re floating too high,” Myst protested. “Get back on the floor.”

They all laughed. They loved teasing him, and he loved being teased.

In the morning they went with the villagers to the nearby comic strip. It writhed and scintillated like a living thing, which maybe it was in its fashion. As they stood beside it, almost touchingly close, color washed across the boundary wall. Letters appeared: MAKE MY DAY.

“We normally don’t enter it,” the Elder said. “We spot a likely pun, reach in, and pull it out. It’s like fishing in a violent stream.”

“We will be entering it,” Zed said. “We want to figure out how to maintain our bearings even in the midst of chaos.”

“Do not use your Totem powers,” Faro said. “That could be dangerous, as things may not be what they appear to be.”

“Myst and I will wait by the side where you enter,” Merge said. “That way you will know you have succeeded if you come out where we are.”

“We’ll know,” Hapless agreed, dry mouthed.

“We should stay together, at least the first time,” Zed said. “We can hold hands and step in, then step out again, testing the water, as it were.”

“If anyone gets separated,” Faro said. “Step out immediately.”

They linked hands in a circle of six and stepped in.

It was instant chaos. Hapless knew the others were still with him, because Feline held his right hand and Faro held his left hand. But he couldn’t see them. What he saw was a tree with extremely odd fruit: dolls with singe eyes in their foreheads. They were little Cyclopes. But where was the pun? He knew that he’d be locked into place contemplating the sight until he got the pun.

“Focus,” Feline said, squeezing his hand. “You’re the last one. We can’t move until you do.”

Then he had it. “Eye Doll a Tree! Idolatry.”

“Good enough. Now we’ll step back together to get out of the strip.”

“Just let me grab a doll for the villagers,” he said.

“No!” she cried. But she was too late; he had let go of her hand and Faro’s hand and grabbed a doll. He got it, and turned around to rejoin them.

They were gone. Too late he remembered the warning: stay linked. Now he was alone in the comic strip.

But they had to be close. He stepped toward the boundary, only there was no boundary any more. What he saw instead was a set of young dragons lining up at a line. Suddenly they were off in a cloud of alcohol fumes, racing along the track. What were they doing? He had to figure it out before he could move on. Sure he knew that young dragons, like other teens, like to race. But where was the pun? For a moment his noggin blocked up. Then it cleared: they were drag(on) racing!

He went on, seeking the boundary wall and thus the way out. There was a man with a book,
Principia Mathematica
. Hapless recognized it as a math book. This must be a mathematician.

“Pardon me, sir. Do you know the way out?”

The man ignored him.

Hapless tried again, this time getting in his face. “Please, sir—”

The man tapped his ear and shook his head. Oh, he was deaf!

So Hapless made an elaborate gesture of trying to walk away. Would that get through?

The man looked at him somewhat blankly, then made a sweeping gesture that Hapless somehow recognized as a mathematical construct: a sine wave.

The deaf mathematician communicated in sine language. That made a certain sense, but since Hapless didn’t speak it, it was no help. He had to give it up.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, keeping it polite. “My best to you, and to your wife, who I presume speaks cosine language.”

He tried to turn around to go back, but remained in a skelter of obscurities. Where was the boundary? He had no idea. What use was it to solve a pun, if he just came up against another pun?

Then he remembered: Think outside the box. The comic strip was like a box, hemming him in. He’d never get free of it if he followed its rules.

But what was there to think of? His problem was immediate. He needed to get out of here, instead of being constantly flummoxed by drifting puns. Actually, it wasn’t the puns that were messing him up—it was the environment. Things kept changing, so that he couldn’t get a fix on reality.

Then he remembered the bit of dialogue the centaurs had had about reality. That the Mundanes believed that it wasn’t fixed until someone observed it. Crazy—yet wasn’t that the case here? Could he fix it by observing it? By making a snapshot? That was certainly outside the box.

He concentrated. SNAPSHOT.

Something changed. He looked around. The environment was locked in place. The deaf mathematician was fixed in his sine. The two dragons were frozen in mid race. Beyond them the Eye Doll a Tree was still.

He had made an observation and collapsed the alternates into a single static reality. Only he remained free to move around.

Good enough. Now he was able to make out the boundary wall. He strode to it and through it, emerging into Xanth proper.

Except that there was no one there. Where were Merge and Myst? The villagers? It wasn’t frozen; he could see tree leaves fluttering in a breeze. What had happened?

“I went out the other side!” he exclaimed. He would have to go back.

So be it. What good was gumption if he didn’t use it? He stepped back through the wall and was back in chaos. Everything had changed.

This time he faced what he recognized as an emulation of the Void. It was spitting out birds. Hawks, in fact. As they emerged it slowly got smaller.

What could he make of a black hole that let hawks escape?

Then he got it. “Hawking radiation.”

But this time he knew how to handle it. He concentrated. SNAPSHOT.

It froze. He walked on through the tableau, past myriad stilled puns.

And there were the mathematician, racing dragons (now a bit farther into their race), and the Eye Doll a Tree. And beyond that were the five Companions. They were caught in an attitude of concerned looking. They were trying to find out where he had gone.

He tucked the cyclopes doll into his belt, then resumed his place and took Feline and Faro’s hands. He focused. RELEASE SNAPSHOT.

The chaos resumed. “Let’s get out of here,” he said loudly.

They backed out out as a group and were in Xanth proper again.

“What happened?” Feline and Faro asked almost together.

“I let go to grab a cyclopes doll,” he said, showing it. “A pun for the villagers.”

“You vanished,” Feline said severely. “We couldn’t find you anywhere. Then you were back.”

“It’s a middling size story.”

“We had better have it,” Faro said.

Hapless narrated it. “So you see, I drew on your dialogue,” he concluded, addressing Faro. “To think outside the box. And it worked. I made a snapshot that enabled me to get around in the comic strip without being swamped by its environment. I think that’s the breakthrough we need to handle the Goddess Isis.”

“Perhaps it is,” Zed agreed thoughtfully. “We had better all learn the technique.”

They practiced it, one by one. First Feline entered the strip alone. She seemed to flounder for a generous moment, but then the strip seemed to crystallize around her.

She stepped out leading a witch by the hand. “She’s so sentimental,” Feline said. “I had to get her out of there.”

“But she’s a witch!” Zed protested. “Witches aren’t sentimental.”

“That’s sedimental, catsup,” the witch snapped, not at all sentimental. “I’m a sand witch.”

“Oh. I guess I missed the pun.”

“I’ll show you. Hit me.”

“But I was trying to rescue you, not abuse you.”

“Do it anyway.”

Feline shrugged and slapped the witch across the face. The blow landed, but had a peculiar effect. The witch’s face dissolved into sand, followed by the rest of her body. In two thirds of a moment she was a pile of sand on the ground. Feline, caught by surprise, was half standing on it.

“Oh!” Feline said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

The sand mounded, humped, and rose into a human figure. “I can’t be abused,” the witch said. “I just dissolve into sand. I lie there, picking up everything in sight from the ground.” She smirked. “You have nice panties, dear.”

“Sedimental,” Zed agreed with three-fifths of a smile.

“Anyway,” Feline concluded. “I made the snapshot technique work, and the witch is the proof.”

“My turn,” Faro said. She stepped into the comic strip.

As before, there was a scant moment, then the strip coagulated around her. She had snapped it. She emerged hauling a man by the arm. “This is Phil,” she said.

“You bet I’m Phil,” he said. “Phil A Buster. I never stop talking. You’ll never get anything done, ha ha.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Zed said. “I thought he lived in Mundania.”

“I live everywhere that anything needs to be accomplished,” Phil said proudly. “I keep talking until there’s no point any more.”

“Well, move it, Buster!” Zed snapped.

“Oh, bleep,” Phil said. “There’s a motion on the floor.” He walked away.

“Sorry I didn’t get a better example,” Faro said. “I didn’t realize how bad he was.”

Next was Zed. “I’ll try not to get a person,” he promised. In due course he emerged with a colorful egg.

“Uh-oh,” Faro murmured. “That looks like a darning egg.”

“What’s the problem with a darning egg?” Zed asked, setting it down.

The egg proceeded to wobble along. “Oh! Darn, Darn, Darn!” it exclaimed.

“Oh.” But Zed, too had mastered the snapshot technique.

Nya went next. “No darning eggs,” she said as she stepped through.

She emerged with a delicious looking piece of pie. “Don’t eat it,” she warned. “It’s humble pie. Its best use is for arrogant folk who seek to enter the Good Magician’s castle without undertaking the challenges.”

Myst took the pie, promising to deliver it to the villagers without nibbling it herself.

Then came Quin. He emerged hauling a statue. “Statue of Limitations,” he explained. “It tells folk what is impossible.”

“Can we capture the Goddess Isis?” Hapless asked.

The statue looked at him. “You can, but you may wish you hadn’t.”

That was not encouraging. But what could they do but go on?

Chapter 15:

Isis

Next day, rested, they bid parting to the villagers. Hapless opened the box.

There was a lovely woman in shorts and a halter, wearing hair curlers and sandals, sitting on a crude wooden throne. The words were ISIS ORB.

“Can that really be her?” Hapless asked, surprised. “I thought she’d be in a shining royal gown.”

“It must show her when she’s not making a formal presentation,” Feline said. “I suppose even goddesses don’t wear their finery all the time; it would get soiled.”

“That must be it,” he agreed. But he still wondered.

The path, to their amazement, led straight to the comic strip. Could she be in there? Or did they merely have to pass through it to reach her?

“I am glad we practiced how to handle the comic strip,” Zed said. “We did not know we’d be using that knowledge so soon.”

“But we shouldn’t need it while we’re on the path,” Faro pointed out. “It protects us from bad things.”

“And what happens once we reach her, and the path ends?” Feline asked.

“We’d better have our mission in hand,” Zed said.

Hapless studied the picture. Isis’ legs were crossed, and she was showing a fair degree of thigh. He did not want to admit how much that turned him on, or the way her halter showed extra flesh around the edges. She was one superlatively sexy creature, regardless of her clothing.

Feline snapped the box shut. “We’re going to complete our Quest, not see the sights.”

“I suppose this is farewell, again,” Merge said sadly. Myst stood with her, misting.

“No,” Feline said firmly “Come along, both of you.”

“You want us along?” Merge asked, surprised.

“Moral support. We fear the goddess may be the bad girl, since Carmen wasn’t. It may take both of us to shield him from that. Men can be wickedly tempted by bad girls.”

“Even by their pictures,” Merge agreed. “Even in dishabille.” She had evidently noticed Hapless’ attention. What could he say? He
was
attracted.

“That’s right. We need to be sure Hapless does the right thing.”

“Then we’ll come,” Merge agreed gratefully, and Myst was sunshine again.

Was this smart? There could be serious danger. Yet he was glad to have them along.

“We should not have to link hands this time,” Zed said. “But we should remain alert.”