Roc and a Hard Place

by Anthony, Piers

  “I think he won’t try it again,” Jenny agreed.

  But already another vehicle was squealing to a stop. This one seemed to be stuffed full of young men. “Hey, babe!” one called. “How about a smooch?”

  Metria found that this sort of thing palled fairly quickly. So she turned her whole body into that of a dragon and roared back at them. This time no door opened, and the vehicle squealed away as rapidly as it had come.

  Now at last they could complete their test of the limits of the aisle. Metria took one more step, and remained present. She took another, and still was there. Then she lost her nerve and retreated. “The aisle’s strong enough.”

  Meanwhile Ichabod had gotten his own vehicle loaded. “I stepped out of your aisle several times,” he said as he returned to Arnolde. “I felt the difference, but it was tolerable for brief periods. I believe you are correct: We are well charged with magic, and it takes time for it to dissipate. But we had better resolve the current mission expeditiously.”

  That was his way of suggesting that they hurry, Metria knew. But she wanted to do one thing first. “I was trying to get beyond the front end of the aisle of magic,” she said, “but kept running afoul of Mundanes, or foul Mundanes, and lost my nerve. But I think I should find out exactly what happens when I enter Mundania proper. Maybe it’s not so bad. Would you guide me where you have been, and bring me back, if—?”

  “I understand,” Ichabod said graciously. “Rest assured, I would not allow anyone with appurtenances like yours to come to grief if I could help it. Come this way.”

  He meant her legs, mainly. She followed him around the back of the house, while Jenny remained with Arnolde, who had not moved. The centaur understood the importance of keeping the aisle exactly as it was, so they could experiment.

  “The phenomenon does appear to be significantly more capacious than during its original manifestation,” Ichabod remarked. “By perhaps fifty percent. That is, about three paces out, perhaps ten feet. Observe: I scuffed a mark by my back door, here, where I noted the diminution of the ambience.”

  “Where the magic stops,” Metria translated, stopping just short of the line. “Would you mind, um, holding my hand as I cross?”

  “Mind?” Ichabod said, as if in doubt. “Dear creature, I would consider it a privilege.”

  “Thank you.” Pleased, she gave him her most fetching smile, then took his hand, nerved herself, and stepped across the line.

  Everything turned awful. She was swirling out of control; dissipating in all directions, and losing her mind.

  Then, after a yearlong instant, she found herself strewn around Ichabod every which way, in severe disorder. “Huh?” she inquired intelligently.

  “Are you functional?” he asked.

  She drew in her extremities from around him and got her head together. “I think so. What happened?”

  “You dissolved into a dust devil. That is, a twist of wind, carrying dust and leaves. I tried to push you back into the aisle with my body, but couldn’t quite get hold of you, and feared I was merely disrupting you. Fortunately Arnolde realized what had happened, and stepped sideways one pace. That brought the ambience to your locale, and your persona re-formed.”

  “A dust devil?” she echoed blankly.

  “At times the wind is channeled into a circular vortex, generating a relative low pressure interior, which sucks in dust. Extreme examples become tornadoes or even hurricanes. But most dust devils swirl for only a few seconds, then dissipate. They have no lasting cohesion. I realized that this was likely to be your fate, if you remained clear of the magic.”

  “So you got me back in it,” she said. “I think you saved my existence, Ichabod.” That explained why she was wrapped around him: She had been no more than energy in the air, and when he tried to push her back, he had simply stepped into the swirl. “Thank you.” She shaped her head into its best configuration, made her prettiest face, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

  He looked about ready to faint. Indeed, he sagged somewhat, so that she had to support him. But he was not in discomfort; there was a dazed smile in the vicinity of his mouth, and his eyes seemed to glow. “Thank you,” he breathed. “But please, if you would …”

  “Whatever you wish, friend,” she said obligingly.

  “Put your clothing back on.”

  Oh. She had lost that detail, in the confusion of the dissolution. Hastily she re-formed shoes, skirt, and blouse, in that order. Then his eyes dimmed back to medium, and he recovered his equilibrium. He might be old, but his reflexes seemed to be normal.

  Arnolde and Jenny were two paces away. “It seems that we now know the Mundane reversion of demons,” Arnolde said. “They are the flux that animates the currents of the wind. In Xanth they possess awareness and control, becoming immortal. In Mundania they lack these qualities, so rapidly dissipate.”

  “And so a long-standing question has at length been resolved,” Ichabod agreed. “Thanks to the courage of the Demoness Metria.”

  “Courage!” Metria snorted. “I just wanted to know what would happen if I got out of the aisle. Now I know I’d better not try it.”

  “Courage is as one defines it,” Arnolde said.

  “Um, maybe I should try that also,” Jenny said. “I’m not brave, but it does make a difference whether I turn into a regular girl or a swirl of dust.”

  “To be sure,” Ichabod agreed. “Step this way.”

  Metria watched as the two approached the line in the dirt, and stepped across it. The elf girl held her cat tightly in her arms. Jenny did not disappear, or become dust; she simply became a childlike girl, and the cat did not seem to change at all.

  “Oh! I have five fingers!” Jenny exclaimed.

  “And rounded ears,” Ichabod added. “You have become distressingly normal.”

  “Ugh!” Jenny quickly stepped back into the magic. But then she changed her mind and stepped out again. “The point is to see whether I can safely function in Mundania,” she said. “And it seems I can. That’s good to know.”

  “I am not certain that is entirely the case,” Ichabod said.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “The Mundanes will not be able to understand you, outside of the aisle. You are speaking the magic language of Xanth, which all humanoids know. But it sounds like gibberish to Mundanes.”

  “Oh. So if I leave the aisle, I’d better not speak.”

  “Correct. Your first words would give away your alien origin. That will not be a problem for Metria, who can’t depart the aisle, or Arnolde, who carries it with him. But you will have to be cautious.”

  “In fact, I’d better not stray unless I really have to,” Jenny concluded.

  “That is my opinion. And the same surely goes for your cat.”

  Jenny considered that. “I’d better put him on a leash,” she decided. “He won’t like it, but I don’t want us both getting hopelessly lost in Mundania.”

  “A sensible precaution.”

  They turned and returned to the aisle. They had not gone far, but there was no doubt that Jenny had been operating well enough outside the aisle. As she crossed back into it, her ears pointed again and her hands (and surely her toes too) diminished to four digits per appendage. A thumb and three fingers. The magic to the World of Two Moons did not apply to Mundania any better than that of Xanth did.

  “Now we must travel,” Ichabod said briskly. “Since we do not know the address, we shall have to be guided by the summons token. I hope we can proceed without further procrastination.”

  “Yes, let’s move,” Metria said.

  Ichabod put a crate down behind his truck-vehicle, and Arnolde mounted this carefully and stepped up into the back of the truck, which had now been fitted with high sides. Jenny joined him there. Metria was about to do the same, but Ichabod stopped her. “I must have you in front to direct me, Demoness.”

  “Oh. Right.” She watched him get into the enclosed front portion of the vehicle, then popped into t
he seat beside him.

  “Perhaps it would be better not to move that way,” Ichabod suggested. “We do not want to attract undue attention to ourselves.”

  “Oh, that’s right—demons don’t exist in Mundania,” she said. “Except as swirls of wind. I’ll watch my manners.”

  He took a small key and used it to unlock something on the front side. But no door opened. Instead a dragon growled, so close it seemed almost on top of them. Metria dissolved into smoke, but caught herself before she drifted out of the vehicle. “What’s that?” she asked, re-forming.

  Ichabod glanced at her. His eyes went opalescent again. “That is the motor starting,” he said. “Have no concern. But if you don’t mind—your clothing.”

  Oh. She kept forgetting. It was hard to keep such details in mind when such strange things were going on. She formed the necessary items.

  “Understand, I have no objection to your, er, natural appearance,” Ichabod said. “In fact, I find it extremely appealing. But I fear I would be unable to drive well with such a distraction, and any other male who perceived your assets would suffer similarly.”

  “My what?” she asked, glancing down at herself. Then she realized that he had not used a bad word. “You mean if we were alone and nobody else could see, there’d be no problem?” She had a suspicion about the answer. After all, it wasn’t as if she were completely inexperienced with human males.

  He seemed to hesitate. “I, ah, er, um, that is to say, perhaps not, but that seems an unlikely eventuality.”

  That was his way of saying that his orbs would burn out. Satisfied, Metria brought out the Kim token and held it before her. She was lucky those hadn’t been lost when she stepped out of the aisle! “That way,” she said, pointing as it tugged.

  Ichabod reached for her knee. Curious, she watched his hand. But it stopped just short, landing instead on the kneelike knob on top of a stick poking from the floor. He wiggled the stick. Then he pushed his feet against pedals on the floor. This was evidently a magic ritual.

  The vehicle lurched forward. Metria held her position, and turned her head back to see how the two in back were taking it. They were all right; Arnolde must have ridden in this contraption before, and warned Jenny about it. The two had gotten along very well, ever since discovering that each was isolated from his or her natural species.

  “Er,” Ichabod said, glancing at her.

  She completed the turn of her head. “Yes?”

  “You just did a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation of your head,” he said. “And then made it three hundred and sixty degrees.”

  “So?”

  “That isn’t done among humans.”

  Oh, again. Of course, mortals had inconvenient anatomical limits. “You mean I shouldn’t do that?”

  “It might attract adverse attention which we would prefer to avoid.”

  That meant not to do it. She sighed. “Mundania is a dull place.”

  “I agree emphatically.” Now the truck began to move forward, though he hadn’t finished moving his feet or playing with the wheel angled before him. The craft pulled out onto the road, turned in the direction she had indicated, and gathered speed. This turned out to be respectable; it was about as fast as a magic carpet.

  “How do you make it mind?” she asked. “You haven’t said a word to it.”

  He smiled. “Now, that would be novel: teaching a Demoness to drive.”

  “Why not?”

  He considered. “Why not indeed! Very well, Metria. I am making the truck respond not by verbal commands, but by the actions of my hands and feet. The key turns on the motor, and the levers connect it to the wheels. I steer it with the steering wheel, here.”

  “Fascinating!” she said. “It’s a mindless machine.”

  “To be sure. I must guide it constantly, or it will go astray.”

  She asked more questions, and he, evidently flattered by the interest, explained about the obscure mechanisms of clutch, brakes, steering column, driveshaft, and turning signals. Metria paid close attention. It seemed that Mundania was not quite as dull as she had thought. She could have some fun with a contraption like this, if she ever got the chance.

  She checked with the token. It seemed to have no trouble keeping track of its object, though Kim was across a stretch of magicless terrain. The Simurgh must have seen to that, refusing to let her artifacts be limited by Mundane considerations. But now it was tugging somewhat to the side. “We are drifting off-course,” Metria announced.

  “That is inevitable, given the limits of the highway system. I shall have to angle toward it. Never fear, we shall get there in due course.”

  He turned at the next intersection, and turned again when the direction still wasn’t right. It seemed that it was not possible, in Mundania, to go directly where one wanted to go. So they kept moving, and Metria kept learning about the ways of controlling the vehicle, and at other times gazing out at the changingly dull scenery of the region.

  They passed many blocky buildings, and many sections of field between, and sometimes some bits of forest. Other vehicles prowled constantly, on both sides of the road. It seemed that each had to stay on its own side, according to the direction it was going, or there would be an awful crash.

  At last the tugs on the token got stronger. “We are coming close,” Metria said.

  “Excellent. We are approaching Squeedunk. What age is Kim?”

  “Nineteen, by now, if folk age at the regular rate in Mundania.”

  “Then she is college age. She could be at the Squeedunk Community College.”

  “Community collage? Do they paste unrelated things together to make a picture?”

  He smiled. “In a sense, Metria. They try to educate juveniles, which may be about as much of an art.”

  Soon they came to the SCC campus. The buildings were large and covered with blue glassy squares. Young human folk walked between them, carrying armfuls of books. Some had spread blankets on the flat green sward and were sunning themselves in scant attire.

  “They are wearing less than I am,” Metria said, pouting.

  “They are less endowed than you are,” he said diplomatically.

  “Less whatted?”

  “Healthy, curvaceous, symmetrical, proportioned, statuesque, comely—”

  “Stacked?”

  “Whatever,” he said with a smile. “You would disrupt traffic and classes, so must mask your assets.”

  There was that word again. “My whats?”

  “Charms. Are we going right?”

  She checked the token. “That way,” she said, pointing to a building.

  Ichabod brought the truck around to the parking lot nearest the building. “I hope she lives on the ground floor,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “How will we get to her, out of reach of the aisle?”

  “Arnolde will have to go in with us.”

  “A centaur in Mundania? Better for you to go naked.”

  Metria sorted that out, and concluded that he meant that it wasn’t practical for Arnolde to enter the building. He was probably right. The centaur wouldn’t enjoy the narrow steps and halls and landings Metria could see, and might attract more attention than was wise. So it would be best if he remained in the truck.

  But that meant that the rest of them would have to stay there too. Except for Ichabod, and maybe Jenny. Jenny couldn’t speak outside the aisle, so it would have to be the man. “So you fetch her.”

  “Men are not allowed in the women’s dormitories,” he said. “It is one of those archaic regulations that still obtain in the hinterlands.” She realized that he was making a funny, but wasn’t quite sure about what.

  They got out and walked to the rear of the truck. Arnolde’s head and shoulders showed above the high side. “We have arrived?” the centaur asked.

  “At the girl’s dormitory. But we have a problem. She may be out of reach.”

  They discussed it, but before they came to a conclusion, some studen
ts approached. “Xibu’t vq, epmm?” a young man called to Metria.

  Metria looked at Ichabod. “This is Mundane speech?”

  “Yes. He just inquired, ‘What’s up, doll?’ He will become intelligible once he enters the aisle.”

  “Doll?”

  “It is an overly familiar mode of address to an unfamiliar woman.”

  “That’s what I thought. Suppose I put on a dragon’s snout and bite his head off?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. We don’t wish to make a scene.”

  She had been afraid he would say that. “So how do I squelch this clod of dragon manure?”

  “Perhaps I had better handle this.” Then, as the youth reached them, Ichabod said, “Were you addressing my married daughter?” Jenny remained out of sight, so this had to be Metria.

  “Oops,” the young man said, abashed. In three fifths of a moment he was gone.

  “That was fun, I confess,” Ichabod said.

  A young woman approached. “Oooo,” she squealed. “Is that a horse in there?”

  Metria realized that Arnolde’s speckled flank showed through the slats of the side. “Not exactly,” she said.

  “But I’m sure I saw—yes, that’s definitely horseflesh!” the girl said, peering through.

  Arnolde looked at her from above the side. “That horseflesh belongs to me,” he said. “Would you like a closer look?”

  Oops! Metria opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Oooo, yes!” the girl cried, jumping up and down in her excitement. Metria knew that did interesting things to her sweater, because Ichabod’s eyes were starting to shine.

  “Then perhaps I might prevail on you for a favor, first,” Arnolde said.

  “Oh, sure! Anything.”

  What was the centaur up to?

  “There is a young woman we would like to talk with, but of course, we can’t go into the dormitory, being male. Would you be kind enough to take a message to her?”

  “Sure,” the girl agreed, straining to get a better glimpse. So far she had not been able to make the connection between the horseflesh and the talking man.