xanth 40 - isis orb

by Anthony, Piers

  She turned a sultry gaze on him. “No.”

  “Then something is wrong. This path was supposed to lead me to a cat.”

  “What do you want with a cat?”

  “It’s not what I want. It’s what I’m supposed to find. I really don’t care for cats.”

  “You’re not making much sense. Why look for a cat if you don’t like cats?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said, nettled. He didn’t like a disparaging glance from a pretty girl any more than he liked it from a butterfly or bird. Where could that cat be?

  “Explain it, please.”

  “Why should you be interested?”

  “Trust me: I’m interested. Answer the question.”

  Well, she had asked for it. “I am on a Quest for the Good Magician. He gave me a box containing what I need, even if I don’t much want it. The box contained a picture of a cat with the word FELINE. It opened up a path to lead me to that cat. Instead it seems to have led me to you. Is the cat your pet?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have it hidden away somewhere, like maybe in a bag? If so, would you please let it out.”

  She contemplated him disquietingly. It was as if she knew something he did not, such as the whereabouts of the cat. “Tell me more about this Quest. Why did you seek it?”

  “Well, my talent is to conjure musical instruments, but I can’t play any of them. It’s frustrating. So if I succeed in the Quest, I’ll find my instrument.”

  “And what is this Quest?”

  “I have to find the Isis Orb and use it to grant my wish. To do that I need to find five Companions, and five Totems needed to control the Orb. It’s complicated, as I said.”

  “And what do these Companions get out of it?”

  “They’ll get their own wishes granted by the Orb. So it’s a group effort.”

  “And I’m standing in your way.”

  “As long as you don’t tell me where that cat is, yes. I just want to find the cat and get on with the Quest.”

  She turned slowly, and her curves turned with her. “What do you think of me?”

  “You’re beautiful, including your pretty striped hair. I’d love to have a girlfriend like you. But I’m pretty sure you’re not interested. So will you quit teasing me and tell me: where is the cat?”

  “All you care about is my curves?”

  “That’s all I know of you!”

  “And suppose I want someone to care about something other than my curves?”

  He was getting fed up. “Then maybe you should find your own Quest, instead of interfering with mine.”

  “I am not interfering.”

  “That’s what you say. Why don’t you just go away?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  He was exasperated. “Where is that cat?”

  “Watch me.”

  “I’m watching.” Indeed, she was not at all hard to watch. She could probably freak out a man without ever flashing panties, if she tried.

  She started changing. She seemed to melt down into a four footed animal with a tail. It had blue and white stripes.

  “Oh, my,” he breathed. It was the cat. She was the cat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The cat silently stalked off.

  Bleep! He hurried after it. After her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I simply had no idea.”

  The cat reached a nearby tree trunk and quickly climbed it. She lay on a branch just out of his reach and gazed down at him.

  He had had enough of this. “Listen to me, Feline, if that’s your name. I gave you a reason for my tackling this Quest, but that’s not the whole story. The Good Magician asked me to take it, and finding a musical instrument is only part of it. Another part is that it seems I am the key to helping five other people accomplish their own wishes. Without the Quest they won’t get what they want either. One of them is you. So whatever it is you want, you won’t get it unless you cooperate and help me get the Orb. But if you don’t care about that, okay, I’ll go look for the next Companion and leave you out of it. I’m not going to mess with you. So get with it or get out; it’s your choice.”

  The cat continued to stare at him.

  “As you wish.” He turned and stalked away from the tree.

  “You win.”

  He turned back. There was the woman. He realized that she was fully clothed; the transformation seemed to cover that. “So what is it that you want that the Orb might grant?”

  She smiled, looking dangerously pretty in the process. “This is ironic. I want to be loved for something other than my curves.”

  Hapless was amazed. “For something else? But you’ve got them. Why not use them? I’m sure you can catch the eye of any man you want to.”

  “I can. That’s the point. There’s a lot more to me than my curves. I want some of the rest to be recognized. A man who sees only curves is too shallow to bother with.”

  “That’s all I’m seeing of you.”

  She merely looked at him. Bleep! He had just defined himself as hopelessly shallow. He laughed ruefully. “Got me there. I apologize.”

  “Let’s get on with the Quest,” she said. “The day is late. We’d better make camp, and look for the next Companion in the morning.”

  He looked around. The protected path had vanished, and he wasn’t ready to start the next one. “There doesn’t seem to be much here, and it’s an exposed glade; we’ll be in danger if we sleep here.”

  “You’ll be in danger. I’ll sleep high in a tree.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “You don’t know what to do, do you?”

  “I guess not. I hadn’t planned this far ahead. I’ve lived in a village all my life. Never spent a night in the wilderness.”

  “You’re not much of a man.”

  Was she trying to nettle him? “Not much,” he agreed.

  “And you’re supposed to lead a Quest?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “The Good Magician enlisted you, you said. You must have some quality he respects. What is it?”

  “I understand he said I have gumption.”

  She considered. “Maybe you do. You walked away from me.”

  He was surprised. “You respect that?”

  “Yes. No man who has seen my curves ever just walked away. I had to change forms to get rid of them.”

  “Gumption,” he repeated. “Well, that and a tame ogre will keep me safe at night, and I don’t have an ogre.” He thought of something else. “And you did change forms, so maybe it doesn’t count.”

  She pondered briefly. “If you’re supposed to lead this Quest, and I need the Quest to achieve my wish, and I’m supposed to be your Companion, then I guess it’s up to me to keep you safe, if you get eaten by something during the night, the Quest will fade away.”

  “You don’t have to do anything for me,” he snapped. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “There’s that gumption again. You’re going to go your own way, and damn the torpedoes.” She smiled briefly. “Not that I have any idea what a torpedo is. But at the moment it’s foolish. You need to do something to ensure your comfort and safety, and you’re not getting it done.”

  “If you’re quite through embarrassing me, what do you have in mind?”

  She smiled again; it seemed to be becoming a habit. “I doubt I’m through doing that. There must be something you can do, if only we can think of it. Otherwise the Good Magician would not have entrusted you with the Quest.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Maybe your talent relates. You conjure musical instruments?”

  “Yes. But I can’t play them, so it’s not worth much.”

  “I wonder. I’ve always wanted to play the kit, because it sounds like my nature, but never had one to practice with. Can you conjure me one?”

  “What’s a kit?”

  “It’s a very small violin, easy to carry around.”

  “Oh.” Hapless focused. The kit appeared in his ha
nd, together with its bow. “Here.”

  “Lovely.” She took it, put the base of it to her chin, and stroked the bow across the strings. A perfect note sounded.

  She paused, surprised. Then she launched into a tune. It was perfectly rendered and quite evocative. She really could play!

  When the song ended, she shook her head. “This must be a magic instrument. I’ve had no practice; I know I can’t play this well on my own.”

  “My instruments do play well,” he agreed. “Except when I try them. Then they reek. It’s maddening.”

  “Can you conjure another kit?”

  He shrugged and conjured another. Now there were two.

  “Try playing it.”

  He grimaced, then put bow to string. A gut-wrenchingly sour note sounded.

  Feline winced. “I see what you mean. That is world-class discordance. You have no musical talent.”

  “Yes. Only musical ambition. If I can only find the right instrument for me, then as you say, they are magic, and it would play well for me. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but the result is always awful.”

  “Maybe that one is cursed. Let’s exchange instruments.”

  They exchanged, but it didn’t change the music: she played beautifully, and he played abysmally.

  “Well, now we know,” she said. “It seems the same instruments that are enchanted to play well for others, are enchanted to play ill for you. I appreciate your frustration.”

  “Yes,” he agreed shortly. “So what does this have to do with my being safe for the night?”

  “I had thought maybe music soothes the savage beast.”

  “That’s breast, not beast. Everybody gets it wrong.”

  “I apologize. It’s clear that you won’t be soothing any breasts or beasts with your music.” Then a bulb flashed over her head. “But maybe that’s your answer: when a beast comes, play for it.”

  “Play for it? Why? So it will feel better about destroying me?”

  “To drive it away. No creature could stand to listen to you long. Maybe that’s your real talent: to drive away beasts.”

  He stared at her. “I never thought of that!”

  “So maybe that’s my contribution: to think of something. Now let’s find something to eat and drink, before it gets too dark. And maybe something to make a tent.”

  “But you’re going to sleep in a tree, as a cat.”

  “Maybe.” She gestured to one side of the glade. “On my way here I crossed a streamlet. A pie plant grew beside it, and a blanket bush. Those should do nicely.”

  “You knew this, but you didn’t tell me?”

  ”You didn’t ask.” She walked in that direction.

  He followed her, unable to avoid admiring her curves in motion despite his annoyance with her attitude.

  “You’re looking,” she said without turning her head.

  How did women always know? “Yes.”

  “Men do. I’d have to wear a poncho to stop them. It’s annoying.”

  “So the Orb will point you to a man who doesn’t look.”

  “Oh, I don’t want that.”

  “You don’t? I thought—”

  “I want a man who appreciates me for something other than my curves. He can appreciate my curves too, as long as that’s not the only thing.”

  “That does make sense.”

  They came to the streamlet, which was exactly as she had described. They drank the water, harvested pies, and pitched a small tent made from blankets. Feline nibbled a chunk of cheese she had harvested. “Hoo!” she exclaimed. “That’s really sharp.”

  “Sharp?”

  “Try it.” She broke off a section and handed it to him.

  He tried it. It was so sharp he almost cut his tongue. “Hoo!” he agreed. “What kind is it?”

  “Swiss Army Cheese, I believe. Sharp like a knife with multiple blades.”

  “Sharp,” he agreed.

  As darkness closed they sat together in the tent. They still had the two kits, ready to use them at need.

  “So who sleeps here?” he asked, just in case she meant to use it herself.

  “We both do.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t be concerned. I will assume my cat form to sleep.”

  Oh. Of course. “Uh, should we take turns keeping watch? In case there are beasts?”

  “No need. I sleep lightly. I will know if anything approaches, and will alert you. Then you can play to drive it away.”

  “But wouldn’t you be safer, even so, up in a tree?”

  “Not necessarily. There are predators in trees, too. A dragon could come and toast me, for example.”

  That was another thing he hadn’t thought of. “I suppose so.”

  “Or an autocrat.”

  “A what?”

  “AutocRat,” she repeated, pronouncing it carefully. “A tyrannical rat that has it in for cats.”

  “Oh.” As usual, he had no clever comment.

  “Are you sleepy yet?”

  “No. It will take me time to unwind.” He refrained from saying that sitting so close to her curves was part of what was winding him up.

  “Me too. So now must be the time for our histories.”

  “Our whats?”

  “We didn’t just come into existence when we met. Tell me your personal life history and I’ll tell you mine. That way there should be fewer nasty surprises as we tackle the Quest. If those narrations don’t bore us to sleep, maybe we can play games of tic-tac-toe.”

  He laughed. “I like the way your mind works.”

  “What, something other than my curves?”

  Why did she have to spoil it? “Yes,” he agreed shortly.

  “You first.”

  “I’m pretty simple, as you already know,” he said with attempted irony he knew wasn’t working well. “I was delivered twenty one years ago to a beefsteak tomato farmer who made a good living providing steaks to others. I was, I suppose—” He hesitated.

  “Was what?” she prompted.

  He plowed on. “A disappointment. I wasn’t especially smart or handsome, and my talent was a waste. Also, I was sort of stubborn.”

  “Another name for gumption, maybe.”

  “Maybe. So when I grew old enough to live on my own, I moved out and spent my time conjuring every different kind of musical instrument I could think of, in the hope that, well, you know. They fade out after a day or so, so they didn’t clutter the house. Then the Good Magician visited me and urged me to undertake a Quest.”

  “He didn’t just promise that you’d find your playable instrument,” she said wisely. “What else was there?”

  He had to answer, now that she had put it directly. “He said that I’d have two or maybe even three girlfriends, one of whom would be a bad girl.”

  “Two or three?” she asked in a chilly tone.

  “Well, I never had a girlfriend,” he said defensively. “Maybe they’re backlogged.”

  “And you think about the bad girl. Who is she?”

  “Maybe the Goddess Isis. Though I can’t think why she’d have any interest in me.”

  “That is a curiosity,” she agreed.

  “And he said I might make a difference in Xanth, apart from helping five other folk to realize their wishes. So I’m here.”

  She nodded. “You couldn’t say no. Because underneath all your ineptitude and stubbornness you’re a decent guy.”

  “I hope so.”

  “My turn. Twenty years ago my mother was lost in the forest; she had taken a wrong turn and couldn’t find the right one. She was frightened and thirsty, so when she came across a small clear pond she squatted down to dip out some water with her hand and sip it. It gave her a really odd feeling. Then a tomcat came, chasing a rabbit. The rabbit leaped right over the pond, and the cat fell in, just as the cunning bunny had intended. Mother went to help him get out, because cats don’t usually swim well. Too late they both realized that it was a love spring.”

  “O
oh, my,” Hapless breathed.

  “Right. By the time they scrambled out of the water, they had signaled the stork several times. They couldn’t help it; love springs don’t take no for an answer. Tom ran off into the brush, and Mom waded out the other side. She found a path and made her way home, but in due course the stork found her—they can be uncanny about such things—and delivered me. This was awkward because Mom wasn’t married and she had told no one about her incident in the spring. That made her a bit of a pariah, because the other villagers suspected. She had to raise me alone. It didn’t help that I had this weird hair.”

  “I think it’s pretty.”

  “What, as pretty as my—”

  “Stop it! I’m not trying to insult you. You won’t let me be positive.”

  She considered that. “I guess maybe I am a bit oversensitive. All the boys teased me cruelly about my hair. It didn’t help that when I discovered my talent, which is to assume either human or feline form, my cat fur was the same color as my hair. Sure it made sense, but I wish both had been ordinary dull brown. I alternated weeks with my father, who worked in the Catnip and Catapult Works, but he didn’t take me to work with him because the cats razzed him about my colors; he was ashamed of me, and blamed it on my mother. My mother blamed it on my father. I don’t know where my colors came from. Whoever heard of a blue cat, let alone a blue striped one? So it wasn’t much of a childhood or kitten-hood. At times I wished they’d never run afoul of that love spring.”

  “You had it worse than I did,” Hapless said. “I’d have felt the same way.”

  She flashed him a smile of appreciation in the darkness; he felt its brief warmth. “Then when I came of age I got my curves, in both my forms. Then the boys’ attitudes changed, but not for the better. Now all they wanted was to get their hands or whatever on my curves. But I knew them, and remembered their endless taunts. They were not worth my while. If there had been one halfway decent male among them in childhood, I might have been satisfied to let him touch my curves, but there had been none. It wasn’t any better with the local tomcats; all they wanted was one thing, and they meant to have it regardless of my own wishes. They were not at all subtle; they just wanted to jump on and in. I got into some really awful fights defending my so-called honor. I’d almost have been better off moving to the isle of Exsangui Nation, where vampires lurk; most residents die of blood loss. So now when some man even looks at my curves, I remember all that nasty teasing, and I—I react.”