Then one of the wheeled machines was zooming right at them, filling the screen, roaring with sound. Chlorine cowered down, but it disappeared. It was, as Kim had said, just a picture. A moving picture. An illusion. She held Nimby’s hand. He seemed to be fascinated by the effect, watching the machines zoom across dirt and sail into the air as they rode over hills. Probably he liked the feeling of magic, though Dug and Kim assured them that there was none.
“Well, maybe there is, in a sense,” Dug said. “They take shots over and over, and over, to get them right, and they have equipment hidden beyond camera range, so as to catch flying men before they crash into the ground. But it’s mostly fakery. Real folk can’t ride cycles that way, and live.”
Nimby glanced at him. Chlorine wondered what he was thinking of. She hoped it wasn’t of riding zooming loud machines.
There were other frightening, odd, or incomprehensible “preview” pictures. One featured a villain hauling the hero high with a pulley, so that he dangled over a cauldron of acid. Nimby seemed fascinated by this too. “That’s a geared block and tackle,” Dug said helpfully. “It multiplies the pull. See, the villain can work it with one hand, lifting the hero’s whole weight. Leverage is great stuff.” Nimby nodded, making a mental note. Chlorine thought it was the physics rather than the story that intrigued him. But she wasn’t sure. Nimby was interested in everything, and he had an inhuman capacity for assimilating new information.
Then print appeared on the screen. “Now the movie is starting,” Kim said. “There are the credits.”
Then the screen was filled with storm and rain, as a couple rode in their wheeled box—their car—through evidently unfamiliar terrain. They had to take shelter in a private mansion run by a Doctor Sam Sausage. After that things became more conventional, and Chlorine began to enjoy the story. Others in the theater talked to the screen, and helped things happen in response to their urgings. It surely would have been a lesser story if they had not been acting to enhance it. Chlorine liked their attitude. She made a mental note to try one of the dance steps it so carefully diagrammed. It was just a jump to the left, and other stylized motions, such as placing the hands on the hips. Very nice. She was glad they had seen this.
When the movie ended, they made their way back outside, where the day was unconscionably bright and warm. They got in the car, which was hot, but then it cooled. It rolled back toward the house, somewhat unsteadily. Had it lost the way? Chlorine had understood that Dug was in some way guiding it, as one would a steed. She glanced at him—and was amazed.
Dug was not guiding it. Nimby was. Nimby was sitting in the “driver’s” seat, with his hands on the “steering” wheel. Dug was giving instructions from the other seat.
“Red light ahead. Depress brake pedal. Stop. Green light. Depress accelerator pedal.”
The car leaped ahead. But Nimby did seem to have it under control, and soon the ride steadied. He turned the wheel when Dug said, and the car turned at the same time. In due course they reached the house.
Chlorine realized that she should not have been surprised. His powers of magic were greatly diminished, but Nimby had enormous powers of comprehension, and he was here to learn about Mundania. So he was learning to travel the Mundane way. He would be learning other things as they went, so as to understand the rules of this land.
Back inside the house, they tackled the kitchen. Under Kim’s guidance, Chlorine succeeded in opening and heating a can of beans and spreading jam on slices of bread. Kim did much of the rest, but it was a start. Mundanian ways were distinctly strange, but she was catching on to them.
In the evening Kim showed them what she called the TeeVee. This was a box with a screen on front, and pictures formed on it, and sound came from it. It was like a very small movie. “You can watch news, sports, sitcoms—anything you want,” Dug explained. “Or you can ignore it.”
Chlorine found herself feeling increasingly vague and awkward. When she tried to stand, she fell back into her chair, unbalanced.
“Pia!” Kim said, alarmed. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” Chlorine said. “I’m dizzy, and I don’t feel good.”
“The diabetes!” Dug exclaimed. “We forgot about that. She has to take insulin.”
“That’s right,” Kim said. “She should have had her shot before she ate.”
“Can you handle it, Kim?”
“I’m not sure. I know the principle, but I never saw her do it.”
“Then I’d better. I used to help her, way back when she first was diagnosed and was learning the dosages and technique.” He grabbed for Pia’s purse and rummaged in it for something. Then he approached Chlorine. “Your body has a problem. A shot will take care of it. I’m going to have to get rather personal, but this is something you need to have, and to know how to do. Lift up your skirt.”
“Lift?” she asked vaguely. This was not the kind of thing a man often asked a woman to do in company. But Nimby, who understood that she now had the same problem he had given her Xanth body, nodded. He knew she needed immediate help.
Kim reached across and pulled Chlorine’s skirt up high, revealing her panties. Both Dug and Nimby saw, but neither freaked out. This was Mundania, Chlorine remembered, where things didn’t work as they should.
“Ed, you need to know this too,” Dug said. “Her medicine is in this ampoule.” He was doing something with a needle. “She takes it in the high thigh, where it doesn’t ordinarily show. This much, injected this way.” He brought the needle down. “Pia, don’t move. I’m sorry I’ll be clumsy, so there will be some pain, but it must be done. You must trust me.”
“I do,” Chlorine said. Because she knew of Dug by reputation, during his visits to Xanth. He was sincere and competent.
Kim caught hold of Chlorine, helping her to not move. “Like this,” Dug said, and jabbed the needle into her flesh.
Chlorine jumped and tried to get away, not in control of herself, but Kim held her down while Dug depressed the needle’s plunger and the fluid went in. He was right: it did hurt. Then he pulled the needle out. “Swab,” he said. “We need a swab. Should have used it before, actually.”
Kim found something cool and damp, and dabbed the stuck place. The pain had been brief, and not that bad; Chlorine just hadn’t been ready for anything like this. She pulled down her skirt. “Thank you,” she said, somewhat weakly. She knew the awkward process had been necessary. She had been feeling really odd.
After that they explained in detail what Pia needed, and when, and how. Nimby was paying close attention, and Chlorine knew he understood. He would see that it was done. Already she was feeling better; the shot had indeed fixed her problem. It had also shown her how much she and Nimby needed the guidance of the Companions. Without them, this could have been quite serious.
Things settled down, and they watched the TeeVee and talked. Mundania was almost becoming familiar.
Then Dug and Kim got ready to depart, for their home was elsewhere. “Tomorrow we’ll show you how to ride the motorcycle,” Dug said from the car.
Nimby perked up. Kim laughed. “Yes, like the ones in the movie preview, only nobody in real life ever rides them like that.”
“Ed would have a fit if his Lemon were treated that way,” Dug said. “He loves that machine beyond all else.”
“What, beyond Pia?” Chlorine asked.
Dug and Kim exchanged a glance. “You might as well know,” Dug said. “Ed and Pia are not getting along well. So yes, he may value the Lemon beyond her.”
“Their visit to Xanth is to give them a break from routine life, so as maybe to get a new slant on their relationship,” Kim said. “We hope it works out.”
“They’re good friends and good people,” Dug said. “Just not wholly compatible.”
“Xanth has a way of making things work out,” Chlorine said. “Especially romantically.”
“We know,” Kim said. “We hope it works on them.”
Then Dug started the m
otor, and the Neptune moved out.
“This has been a considerable day,” Chlorine said when they were alone. “Mundania isn’t as backward as I expected, but on the whole I prefer Xanth. I mean, the other place.”
Nimby nodded. But of course he wasn’t here to enjoy Mundania, but to explore it.
“You’re in a Mundane body, without magic, so you will need to sleep too. So let’s get into bed.”
They went upstairs and used the bathroom facilities. It was worse for Nimby than for Chlorine, because as a Demon he had not had natural functions, and in manform he had simply used magic to abate those he didn’t care for. Now he had no way to escape them. She had to help him with the details. Fortunately, as a Demon, he also lacked a sense of privacy. She did not say so, but she rather liked having him dependent on her for help for a change. He would need help only once, in anything, but there would be a number of things to learn.
Then they got into the bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked by way of invitation.
Nimby shrugged. That left it up to her.
“Well, I’m tired and overloaded by new experience,” she said. “But I’ve never made love without magic, and never in someone else’s body, and never to a Mundane man. That’s three to two in favor of doing it now. So let’s do it.”
So they did it. It was surprisingly clumsy and somewhat messy. But Chlorine didn’t mind. She had wondered whether things would be as good without magic, and now she knew: they were not. She wondered why Mundanes even bothered to signal storks. But this also meant she would really appreciate it when they returned to Xanth. Now she had a basis for comparison.
“Are you sorry?” she asked him as they relaxed for sleep.
He squeezed her hand in negation. She appreciated that too. For all its negatives, this experience was like a honeymoon.
Buy Xone of Contention Now!
About the Author
Piers Anthony has written dozens of bestselling science fiction and fantasy novels. Perhaps best known for his long-running Magic of Xanth series, many of which are New York Times bestsellers, he has also had great success with the Incarnations of Immortality series and the Cluster series, as well as Bio of a Space Tyrant and others. Much more information about Piers Anthony can be found at www.HiPiers.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Piers Anthony
Cover design and illustration by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5881-0
This edition published in 2019 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
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