“And who is going to waste a good question on the chance that it might give them my answer instead?” Con demanded con-descendingly. “Then share that answer with me?”
“We might,” Tartan said. He looked around. “Do we agree that it would be ethical to ask several questions in an effort to get the answer to the one we want, and the one Con wants? We would stop the moment we get those answers, and not question the book further.”
The others considered. “We did make an agreement,” Mera said. “And we took the roses.” Indeed, they all had their roses, which remained fresh and pretty, though the trolls could not see them.
“I don’t know,” Con said. “If I keep at it long enough, I’m bound to get my answer eventually.”
“But have you considered this,” Bernard said. “You sleep near the Book, and it sours your dreams. You have been restless and unsatisfied ever since you got it, no? So it is well worth getting rid of.”
“True,” Con said, con-vinced. “The moment I get my answer.”
“Let’s see if we can settle this here and now,” Dolin said. “Trudy, why don’t you fetch the Book?”
The lady troll departed. In barely three moments she was back with the big tome. True to its nature, it had messed up her hair and turned her complexion greenish, even for a troll. “Here,” she said, dropping it on the table with an unpleasant thud.
Tata walked up and sniffed the Book.
Tartan thought of something. “Amara, can you tell when and where our maps will be?”
“Here, at noon,” she said.
“Now let’s ask questions until three answers come up,” Dolin said. “The ones for Con Troll, for Princess Mera, and the key maps of the realities we need. Then we will take the Book back to the wives and be done with it, however much we might long to ask for more. Agreed?”
Con barely pondered. “Agreed.” And the others nodded. It was a reasonable ethical compromise. If someone got an answer to which he or she wasn’t entitled along the way, that was coincidental.
“You first, of course, Con,” Dolin said. “Show us how it’s done.”
Con put his hand on the Book. “How can I become a good actor?” Then he opened the Book, and they all leaned in to read the revealed text.
LESBIANS CAN MARRY IN XANTH.
“See what I mean?” Con said. “Completely irrelevant.”
“True,” Dolin agreed. He put his hand on the Book, which had somehow closed of its own accord. “How can I find my princess to marry? She needs to be esthetic and capable of loving me in a heterosexual manner.” He glanced at Emerald. “No offense, friend.”
“None taken,” the dragon princess agreed. “We both know the stakes.”
Dolin opened the book.
THE PROBLEM WITH MOST MUNDANE COMPUTERS IS THAT THEY LACK FATHER, SON, AND DAUGHTER BOARDS TO GO WITH THEIR MOTHER BOARDS.
“See?” Con said con-versationally.
“Totally irrelevant,” Dolin agreed.
Then Emerald stepped up herself and put her hand on the Book. “How can I secure peace between the dragons and the humans?” She opened it.
TRUDY.
The troll lady jumped. “That’s my name!”
“Irrelevant,” Emerald said with regret.
“We have the answer,” Tara said. “I wonder whether we can find the question to go with it?”
“But I asked no question,” Trudy said. “I’m just the servant girl.”
“But Con did ask. Let’s explore this.” Tara looked around. Nobody objected. Tartan was curious where she was going with this. “Trudy, why are you working here?”
“I am an aspiring actress. I thought maybe if I associated with an actor on a daily basis, I would be able to learn the ropes, so to speak. What they don’t teach in acting school.”
“But I’m a bad actor,” Con protested.
“Maybe you simply haven’t yet found the right role,” Trudy said.
“What kind of roles do you prefer?” Tara asked her.
“Romantic,” Trudy said dreamily. “But I would take what offers, for the sake of the art.”
“Let’s see whether you have what it takes. Kiss Con.”
“What?” Con asked, startled.
“Give her a chance,” Tara said. “She can’t be romantic without a partner. Actors need other actors to play their roles, don’t they?”
“Uh, yes,” he agreed, con-fused.
“I think it’s called method acting,” Tara said. “Trudy, put real feeling into it. Make us believe you mean it.”
Trudy walked up to Con, put her arms around him, and lifted her face to kiss him firmly on the mouth. A little heart flew out.
“You’re good,” Con said, con-tritely. Then he kissed her back. Half a dozen little hearts, give or take one or two, flew out.
“You’re better,” Trudy gasped. “That certainly seemed real.”
“That was real,” he said con-tendedly. “You swept me off my feet. Oh Trudy, I think with you I could make it. You are the answer to my question. Weird that you were right under my nose and I didn’t see it. Until the Book told me.”
“And you’re the answer to mine,” she said.
They kissed again. This time so many hearts flew out that it obscured their heads. They more or less faded out of the picture, transported by their kiss.
“So my question elicited Con’s answer,” Emerald said. “I am beginning to see how this works.”
Mera approached the Book. “How can we deal with the Ghost Writer in the Sky?” she asked, and opened the book.
SUN GLASSES ENABLE A PERSON TO SEE IN THE DARK.
“That was your question that you had to get special permission to ask?” Tartan asked Mera. “Any of us could have asked it.”
“Perhaps,” Mera agreed. “Your turn.”
“My turn,” Tartan agreed, though he wasn’t quite satisfied with her response. He went to the Book. “How can we get the maps we need to get home?” He opened the book.
NOMAN IS AN ISLAND WHERE ONLY WOMEN LIVE.
He sighed. It was another washout.
Tara took her turn. “What is the secret for world peace?”
CEREAL KILLERS GET FAT SOON.
One by one they took their turns, including the hosts, but got no relevant answers.
Tartan looked at his watch. “It’s noon. We’ve all asked, but only the trolls have a good answer.”
“I think the answer is here,” Amara said. “Locked in the Book. Not much help.”
“Woof!” Tata barked.
“That’s right,” Amara said. “Tata hasn’t had his turn.”
The dogfish put a paw on the Book. “Woof!” Then he scraped the book open. There was a bright map.
“Eve’s with Tata,” Tara exclaimed. “When he sniffed the Book he knew all about it. He knew Amara was right: the answer was here. It just needed one more question.”
They pored over the tome. There were three pages labeled R#1, R#2, and R#3, with a note saying YOU ARE HERE. YOU SHOULD BE THERE. “We’re in R#3,” Mera said. “I think all I need to do is touch R#1 as I shift, and we’ll be home.”
“But first we’ll have to return the Book to the wives, here in R#3,” Mera said. “We promised.”
Tartan thought fast. “Maybe the trolls will be willing to do it.”
They oriented on the trolls, who were now mostly buried in a mound of little hearts. “Yes, of course we’ll return it,” Trudy said. “We don’t want to keep it here.”
“Thank you,” Tartan said, and explained where to put the book, and then to knock on the locked door to alert Rose of Roogna.
“No problem,” Trudy said.
Now they were ready. “Touch me,” Mera said.
They gathered close around her, including the dogfish, so that everyone was touch
ing. Then Mera put her finger on the map for R#1.
Things changed.
Chapter 14
Dream Realm
They were standing on the slope of the mountain pit. There was no castle here. It seemed that no one had come to build it. Con and Trudy Troll must have set up shop elsewhere, if they even existed in this reality.
“Let’s go home,” Tartan said.
They marched single file down the mountain and on to the great crystal pool that was the open sky below (above) the hole in the ground. They could not exit via that, of course, in the reversed state. Then on to the kraken pool.
The kraken was there. Bernard made ready to freeze it in time, but it was not assuming a menacing attitude. In fact it looked rather bedraggled. “What’s wrong with it?” Mera asked, solicitous even of such a monster.
“There’s something in the water on the other side,” Emerald said. “It’s all churned up, as if Demoness Mentia freaked it with her panties.”
“Except that this is not a happy freak,” Tara said.
“Sick water,” Tartan said. “I wonder.”
“Wonder what?” Dolin asked.
“We’re in a different reality, but there should be a copy of the Book of Lost Answers here too. Suppose the harpies had taken it?”
Emerald laughed. “They’d soon be fed up with it and throw it away.” Then she almost managed a double take, or at least a one and a half take. “In the kraken’s pool!”
“Which well might poison the water around it,” Dolin said. “Making the kraken sick.”
They skirted the pool and came to the section of bad water. “Let me check,” Amara said. “If I’m immune to love springs, maybe I’m also immune to sick water.” She doffed her clothing, handed it to Emerald, and jumped into the pool. The kraken stayed well away.
Tartan got down and sat at the edge of the pool, to help her if she needed it.
Amara swam down out of sight. Then she was up again, holding something. “The Book!” she gasped, holding it up.
“Oh, I could kiss you,” Demon Ted said, borrowing his mouth for a moment as Tartan extended a hand to help her out of the pool.
“Don’t do that, Ted!” Amara said, alarmed. Then they all laughed. It was clear that those two got along somewhat the way Dolin and Emerald did, understanding each other.
Soon the pool was clearing. The kraken came to life, investigating, but it made no threatening gesture. “I think it knows what we have done, and is grateful,” Tara said.
Amara dried off and dressed. “But if she were interested, I’d be interested,” Ted said to Tartan. “She’s a great girl, and not at all bad looking.”
“Maybe some of Isis rubs off on her,” Tartan said.
They entered the ballroom of the harpies. The dirty birds were there. “Fresh meat!” a harpy screeched. Several of them took wing and converged.
Tartan held up the Book. The harpies shrank from it. “Oh, no!” one screeched. “They got the terrible tome!”
“We’re just passing through,” Tartan said. “We’re returning the Book to its rightful place.”
“Just get it the bleep out of here. Then come back and have some punch.”
“Maybe another time,” Tartan said, smiling internally. Naturally they were not falling for that trick.
They forged on across the hall. The harpies gave them a wide berth.
“There seem to be some advantages to literacy,” Dolin remarked. “Even relating to such a nasty Book.”
They moved rapidly on to what they now knew of as the translation dome. It was essential that they pass back through that and recover their normal orientation. Again they experienced the oddness, the giddiness, but this time they understood its nature.
Finally they reached the book cellar steps. “You may have to sniff the door and figure out how to open it from inside,” Tartan said to Tata.
Then the door was opened from outside. “No need of that,” Rose of Roogna said. “Mera told me you were coming. So did Kelei.”
“Bernie!” Kelei called from behind her.
Barnard launched out of the cellar and enfolded her. Little hearts radiated so thickly that the two were hidden within the cloud.
“All they’re doing is kissing,” Tara murmured. “I think.”
Then Dolin realized something. “Aunt Mera—”
“It’s all right,” Mera said. “I have been in contact with my R#2 self. She’s visiting R#1 by spirit, in a local host. We are not actually occupying the same reality.”
“We are not,” the other Mera agreed as the two hugged. They looked similar, but not identical, because only one was in her original host body.
“And you found the Book!” Rose said, taking it. “Not that we want it back.”
“You were right,” Dolin said. “The Book of Lost Answers is dangerous. Where you hid it before was not secure. You will need to find a better place.”
“We will do that,” Rose agreed.
“We’ll be departing now,” Bernard said. “If you can spare us.”
“Welcome,” Tartan said. “You did your part, freezing time at the critical moment.”
Bernard and Kelei departed, trailing little hearts.
“That’s sweet,” Tara murmured. “I’m going to miss that in Mundania.”
“Now all we have to do is tackle the Ghost Writer,” Tartan said.
“About that,” Rose said. “Something occurred to us after you were gone. You should check with the Night Stallion. Surely he could deal with the Night Colt.”
“How do we find him?” Tartan asked, interested.
“You go to the dream realm. We have a patch of gourds you can use.”
“Gourds?”
“They are gourds with peepholes,” Amara explained. “Once you peek in, you can’t break the contact until someone interrupts it for you. That’s why you always need a nonparticipating colleague.”
“We wives will be happy to provide that service,” Rose said. “It’s the least we can do to facilitate your mission.”
“We’d also better rest,” Emerald said. “We have suffered much unusual experience recently, and made a long march back.”
“There’s another cottage nearby,” Rose said. “You are welcome to use that. Then in the morning we’ll show you to the gourd patch.”
So it was decided. They went to the guest cottage cheese, which turned out to be just large enough to provide for them, as such things tended to be in Xanth. The wives brought them a nice dinner. Then, tired in body and mind, they returned.
“Wow!” Tara said, back in the apartment. “We certainly learned new things in that session.”
“We did,” he agreed. “But are we really any closer to dealing with the Ghost Writer?”
“There has to be a way to nullify him. Which, according to our information, means getting Isis out of the comic strip. I’m drawing a blank on that.”
“Let’s have an ellipsis.”
“Will that get the answer?”
“I doubt it. I just am desperate to do you again, after seeing those two romances work out.”
She laughed. “Yes. I thought you’d never ask.”
. . .
“Mera never got her answer,” Tartan said, suddenly remembering after the ellipsis faded.
“You were thinking of her while you embraced me?”
“Stop teasing me, or I’ll kiss you into oblivion.”
“I dare you to try.”
He tried, but she remained there. “Anyway, I didn’t think of Mera until I got the distraction of you reduced. She lost out.”
“I’m not sure of that. I don’t think the question she actually asked was her original one. That suggests that she did get her answer, in one of the other ones.”
“Cereal killers get fat soon?”
<
br /> “Maybe not that one. But she didn’t seem upset.”
“Why doesn’t she just come out with what’s on her mind?”
“She must have a reason.”
“She must have,” he agreed.
In the morning they rejoined their hosts in Xanth. But Mera’s lost answer still bothered Tartan. Should he ask her about it? Then he saw Tara’s warning look, and stifled it. Tara surely knew best, in a situation like this.
“We told the wives all about our adventure in the inverse land,” Emerald said brightly. “They were amazed. They had no idea that the cellar steps led to such a phenomenon.”
“We suspect they were intrigued by the dancing harpies, too,” Amara said. “Maybe they want to fetch some of that punch and use it on the Good Magician.”
“Naughty wives,” Emerald said with half a titter.
Tartan and Tara shared another private look. The wives were older than they looked; they might also be older than they felt. That punch could certainly enliven their lives.
Rose of Roogna appeared at their door. “Ready for the gourds?” she inquired brightly.
“Um, uncertain,” Tartan said. “Tara and I are inexperienced in this regard. Is there a beginners’ course?”
She laughed. “It’s easy. All you have to do is look in the peephole. We will interrupt your gaze in an hour, at which point you will snap out of it. Then you will decide whether to go back in. But you must all be touching each other, to be sure you arrive or return to the same place, together, just as is the case when you visit Ida’s moons. The dream realm is huge; it’s as big as imagination, and you don’t want to get lost in it.”
“We just want to see the Dream Stallion,” Tara said. “In case he doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“That’s Trojan, the Horse of a Different Color. He surely knows. The question is whether he wants to stop it.”
“The Trojan horse? Maybe we can persuade him,” Tartan said.
“Perhaps,” Rose agreed doubtfully.
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