Crewel Lye

by Piers Anthony

  “No, I’m not! I can’t love!”

  “Now that’s a lie right there! What about your father? You said you love him.”

  “I lied!” she cried without conviction.

  “I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying now. You do love him. Therefore you can love, and you do have a—”

  “You’re a fool to believe me!”

  “Then why do you care what happens to the King, or to Castle Roogna? Why don’t you just come along with me without protest, and watch the castle crumble, and laugh as it falls? What does any soulless one care about the welfare of Xanth?”

  She looked at me with a peculiar mixture of relief and frustration, but did not answer my questions. I was satisfied; she might be a liar, but she was more human than demon. Her humanity, ironically, was proved by the manner in which she opposed me.

  And what of my soul? If I believed her, I could not afford to deliver her to Castle Roogna. So I had to believe that she had lied about the curses and just didn’t want to marry Yin. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to make her own life instead of getting tied down to a family; I was that way myself. But that was no reason for me to abrogate my own mission.

  I was, of course, a fool in several respects, but I didn’t know that then.

  We moved on, and gradually the terrain changed. The trees and brush thinned out, and the ground became sandy.

  “You’ll never get through here,” Threnody said.

  “Why not?”

  “I know this region. This is slowsand.”

  “Seems ordinary to me,” I said, undaunted.

  “You’ll see, barbarian,” she said confidently.

  The patches of sand became larger, until finally they linked and we had to walk through them, rather than remain on rock and turf. But as Pook and I stepped on the sand, we slowed. Our steps became measured, then dragging; we seemed unable to move at normal speed. “What’s this?” I asked, surprised.

  “I told you,” Threnody said. “Slowsand.”

  Now I understood. “It slows us down!”

  “To a crawl. We’ll starve before we get through here.”

  Fortunately, this was only a thin barrier, with more hard land beyond. After a tedious trek, Pook and I made it out of the sand and resumed normal velocity. Now we stayed off the sand, however circuitous the route had to be. But this became difficult and finally impossible. The level region between the mountains and the chasm turned into a desert of slowsand. We had to go around it—but there was no way through the chasm to the north, so it had to be the slopes to the south.

  We meandered that way, our progress slowed almost as much by the deviousness of the necessary route as by the sand itself. The last section before the slope had a strand of sand cutting us off; Pook hurdled it—and slowed in midair so that he seemed to be floating. He wasn’t; he was merely in mid-jump. But it took about fifteen seconds for him to make it to the opposite bank. I jumped, too, with the same effect, so we were both crawling through the air. The slowsand affected creatures above it as well as on it.

  “Won’t do you much good,” Threnody said smugly. “Farther along, there’s quicksand.”

  Quicksand. Obviously that would speed us up as much as the slowsand slowed us down. “I’ll risk it,” I said gruffly.

  “Suit yourself, idiot.”

  “Anything that happens to Pook and me happens to you, too,” I pointed out.

  “Since I’d rather die than betray my father by returning, that’s all right.”

  We got well clear of the sand by ascending the gentle slope of the foot of the mountain range. But now dusk was looming. We stopped under a spreading chest-nut tree whose chests were loaded with nuts; no problem about food here. I unbound Threnody’s feet so she could dismount. She reacted without gratitude. “How do you expect me to eat or whatever with my hands tied?”

  “Whatever?” I asked.

  “I’ll do it behind the tree.”

  Oh. Embarrassed, I untied her hands: “But you must give me your word you won’t try to escape.”

  “Sure,” she said wryly, chafing her wrists. Then she went behind the tree, while I reached up to harvest a chest of nuts.

  It turned out to be a fine selection: Q-nuts and P-nuts; green pistachios; blue, red, and hazel nuts; soft, yellow butter nuts; sandy beach nuts; even a small brown cocoa-nut; plus a few bolts for good measure; and even some washers. That was convenient; I used a washer to wash my grubby hands.

  After a time, I realized that Threnody hadn’t returned from her errand behind the tree. I hesitated to go and look, since I never really did understand how women managed these things and preferred not to inquire, so I called, phrasing it discreetly: “Hey—did everything come out all right?”

  There was no answer. Suddenly nervous, I went and looked.

  Sure enough, Threnody was gone.

  I had been a fool again. Well, I would just have to track her down. I could follow the traces through the brush and weeds of the slope, and if she had gone down into the slowsand plain, I’d be able to see her, despite the encroaching darkness.

  I found no traces. Perplexed, I hesitated. Could she be so adept at hiding that she left no trail? Then my lingering intelligence provided me a notion; use my lingering compass sense! I tuned it in—and the arrow pointed up into the tree.

  I smiled. That was a neat ploy—hide, and when I dashed off in a fruitless search for her, she could come down and proceed without pursuit. Whatever her half-demon parentage might have cost her, it wasn’t cleverness.

  Well, two could play at that game. I finished my meal of nuts, then climbed the tree myself. I settled on a comfortable lower branch and slept.

  After an hour or so, she climbed quietly down. She tried to pass me, but of course I woke and caught her leg.

  “Going somewhere, woman?” I inquired.

  “Damn!” she swore, trying to yank her leg free. But I held on, sliding my hand up for a better grip. She was my prisoner again.

  “You told me you wouldn’t try to escape,” I chided her.

  “I also told you I was a liar,” she reminded me. “It’s my demon heritage.”

  “Then I’ll just have to tie you again,” I said regretfully.

  “How do you expect me to sleep if you tie me?” she demanded.

  I pondered. “Very well. I won’t bind you hand and foot; I’ll tie you to me, so you can’t go without me.” I brought her to the ground and used a cord to tie her right wrist to my left one. I made the knots too tight to untie readily; barbarians are good at that sort of thing. Since she had no knife, she wouldn’t be able to free herself without alerting me.

  “How do you know I won’t strangle you in your sleep?” she asked as we lay there in the dark beneath the tree.

  “I wouldn’t stay dead, and if you start wrestling with me at night, I might forget that I’m saving you for marriage to Yin!” I replied.

  “Barbarian!” she spat, and somehow it didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “Precisely.” I thought that would shut her up. As I’ve said, barbarians don’t really force themselves on unwilling women; that’s just hype put out by the Barbarian Publicity Department. Image is very important to our kind, even when the reality falls short.

  I hadn’t shut her up, though. “If I have to,” she said warningly, “I’ll use my talent.”

  “Oh? What’s your talent?” I asked, interested. Of course she had a talent; everyone did. But some talents were better than others. Some people were proud of their ability to make a dust mote bounce in the air. Maybe hers was better.

  “Striation.”

  “What?”

  “It derives from my heritage, lout. Demon-striation.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t care to admit that this still didn’t make much sense to me, so I let it be. Only those who are not ignorant feel free to confess their ignorance. “Well, you do what you want, only let me sleep.”

  “I will,” she agreed.

  I slept, and there w
as no jerk on the line and no attempt to strangle. But when I checked automatically after an hour or so, I discovered that she was gone. The cord remained undisturbed, the loop that had been about her wrist now empty. Somehow she had slipped it.

  I got up immediately, activating my finder-spell. It showed her nearby; apparently she had only freed herself in the past few minutes. “Going somewhere, King’s daughter?” I inquired.

  “Oh!” she cried, furious. “Why couldn’t you stay asleep longer?”

  I brought her back to the tree. “How did you slip the loop?” I asked. “It’s too small for your hand to pass through, small and fine as your hand is.”

  “I told you, oaf: striation.”

  “Demon-striation,” I agreed, realizing she was not about to tell me her secret. I hung onto her hand so she couldn’t flee again, regretting that the contact was for this antagonistic reason instead of for a positive one. It was indeed a fine little hand; she was nicely formed in every part. “Since the cord’s no good, I’ll just have to hold you directly.”

  “I’ll kick, scratch, and bite,” she warned me.

  “I’ll heal.”

  “It will hurt, though, and you won’t get much sleep.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “You don’t kick, scratch, and bite me, and I don’t let the dirt in my mind tell me what to do with you.”

  “You—you man!” she exclaimed in a cute little fury. I guess she realized that I wasn’t bluffing and that I halfway hoped she would abort the deal.

  I wrapped my arms about her as she lay beside me and settled back for sleep. My stony left arm was hardly aware of her, but my right arm tingled from the contact with her soft body. She struggled a little, evidently considering the kick-scratch-bite-dirt route, then relaxed. She laid her head down next to mine, so that her black hair tickled my nose, and she slept.

  As dawn crept reluctantly in, I woke—to find my arms empty. Threnody was gone again—and my arms had not been disturbed. How in Xanth had she managed that?

  I tuned in on her with the arrow. She was threading her way past the slowsand, going home. I went down and caught her again, lassoing her from the edge of the sand so that I could move faster than she could. But I was more curious than angry. “I was holding you in my arms that time; how did you escape?”

  “You can not hold me,” she said.

  Evidently not! There was something very odd about her. But I put that from my mind for the moment. “Well, have some nuts and we’ll get moving.”

  She had some nuts, and we got moving. This time I didn’t tie her, but I watched her, and she did not try to escape. We moved on around the mountain slopes.

  Then I spied a cloud looming from the east. It sparkled iridescently. I peered at it. “I don’t trust that type.” Actually, barbarians don’t trust anything they don’t understand; it’s a necessary paranoia in the wilderness. That was the main reason I didn’t trust Threnody.

  “It’s a technicolor hailstorm,” she said. “They develop in this region; I think it’s because of interactions between the slowsand and the quicksand, generating fierce convections. Better get under cover.”

  “Cover—from a hailstorm?” I asked derisively. “We’ll ignore it.”

  “Suit yourself, moron.”

  I didn’t like either the storm or her attitude, but there wasn’t much to do but move on. We did so, and the storm loomed massively, seeming almost solid in the sky, spreading out until it blotted out much of the welkin. I heard a low, throbbing, sad melody; I looked, and discovered it was Threnody, singing. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “I’m singing the dirge of our demise,” she replied. “I’m good at that sort of thing; that’s how I got my name. But I do better when I have my lute.”

  She was still angry about not being permitted to bring her musical instrument. Actually, it would have hampered her attempts to escape—which meant that I might have been better off to let her bring it. But I had a more immediate concern. “Demise? From a mere hailstorm?” I asked incredulously.

  “Well, maybe you’ll recover after it passes, since you can return from death. The rest of us won’t.”

  I didn’t like the sound of this, and I saw Pook’s ears perking up with alarm. He was a ghost horse, but if the living aspect of him died, he would be just a ghost. And if Threnody died, my mission would be finished; I was sure it would not count if I delivered a dead body to Castle Roogna.

  “Okay, I’ll seek cover.” I cast about and saw a small stand of timber trees upslope. We moved to them. I used my sword to chop the timbers and used the timbers to construct a pointed edifice, then bound it tightly at the top with cord and wedged its base into the ground below. I think this type of construction is called a tee-wam; it’s useful in an emergency. I wrapped bark about it, tying it in place. It was a crude structure, but sturdy. We crowded into it, the three of us, just as the first hailstones struck.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” Threnody remarked indifferently.

  “It’s a barbarian skill,” I said, foolishly flattered.

  “Live and learn! I didn’t know barbarians were good at anything except kidnapping helpless damsels.”

  “That, too,” I agreed.

  A hailstone struck the shelter with a crash like that of solid rock. I jumped. I peered out—and another stone just missed my head, thunking into the ground so hard it made a formidable dent. It was green and pitted.

  I reached out and grabbed it before it rolled away. “Hey—this is a real stone!” I cried.

  “What did you expect?” she asked. “Colored ice?”

  “Well, yes. Little light balls of ice.”

  “Maybe elsewhere. Here it hails real stones.”

  So it did. Another struck the shelter and rolled away. I could see them falling all around, red and blue and orange and brown. They were pretty—but any one of them would have brained a person or animal. Maybe that was why we had encountered no large animals in this region; only the small ones could hide from this sort of storm. Threnody had been right to urge shelter.

  We could not travel while the storm raged, so we waited, huddled together. Threnody was astride Pook, and I beside, my torso against her left leg. She resumed her song of lamentation. Pook’s ears were laid back; he didn’t like either her or the song. But I thought both were rather pretty. That leg certainly was! I wished again that things were more positive between us.

  The storm raged for an hour. I snoozed on my feet, leaning against the leg. When the storm finally abated, I woke, finding myself leaning against Pook’s side. I looked about. Threnody was gone again. “Hey—where is she?” I asked.

  Pook had been snoozing too. He woke with a start. He sniffed the air, but was as baffled as I. It was amazing how she could depart without alerting us.

  I used the arrow again. It was slowly fading as time passed, but was enough to do the job. It pointed west. Threnody was headed for home again.

  We emerged from the shelter, which was now sadly battered by the stones, and hurried west around the slope. Soon we caught up to her. She hadn’t gotten very far. She was moving very slowly, though she wasn’t in the slowsand.

  I charged up and caught her by the arm—and my hand passed through it. “You’re a ghost!” I exclaimed, appalled. “You went out too soon and got clonked by a hailstone and now you’re dead!”

  “No, I’m just diffuse, lout,” she said faintly.

  I passed my hand through her body. Sure enough, there was some resistance, like that of thin water or thick fog. She was more substantial than a ghost, though not by much.

  “You’re pretty fresh, barbarian!” she informed me as my hand emerged from her chest.

  I jerked my fingers back guiltily. “What happened to you?”

  “It’s my talent,” she explained. “Striation. I’d have been long gone, if I hadn’t encountered a headwind. It’s hard to fight a wind in this state.”

  I saw that it was so. A gust of wind passed and almost bl
ew her off her feet. She hardly weighed anything at all. “You can just thin out?”

  “I told you I have demon parentage. Demons can turn to smoke and change size and shape.”

  “But if you can do that, why did you ever let me tie you?”

  “I can’t do it fast,” she said bitterly. “It takes an hour just to change one aspect—and you never gave me more than an hour to myself.”

  I almost felt guilty. “The loop of rope!” I exclaimed.

  “You diffused out of it!”

  “Of course.” She was slowly becoming more solid.

  “And I diffused enough so that the hailstones couldn’t hurt me. But the storm stopped too soon, so you weren’t confined, and this stupid headwind—”

  I had started to wonder how I could hold her when she was smoky-diffuse, but now I realized that all it would take was a fan to blow her anywhere I wanted her to go. Her escape had been slow because of the air resistance, which was much more formidable for her than for those of us in the solid state.

  “You say this is just one aspect? You can change other ways too?”

  “Oh, you might as well know it all,” she said with angry resignation. “You seem to have the blundering luck of ignorance. Demons can change form instantly; that’s why my mother was able to fool King Gromden, who would never have touched her if he had known. Her natural appearance was horrendous, but she emulated the human form so well that nobody could tell the difference. But I’m only half demon, so I can’t operate as well. I can only do one aspect at a time. If I want to be big or small, I have to take an hour for that. But then I’m either diffuse or concentrated—a smoky giant or a super-solid midget—until I change my density to match. That takes another hour. Because my mass hasn’t changed, only my size. And if I want to be in the likeness of a normal mouse, it takes a third hour to get the shape right, if only you’d let me be for three hours!”