Board Stiff (Xanth)

by Anthony, Piers

  “Thank you.”

  The Wives packed them box lunches, the assorted boxes being made of different pastries and crackers, and they were on their way. They followed an enchanted path so that no nasty predators could bother them, and there was a stream with cool gray water to drink. Not only was the path safe, the Wives assured them, it would get them there much faster than otherwise. They would not have to struggle with the formidable geography of this world.

  “Why take the trouble to get to the blue face if there’s really nothing there for us?” Ease asked.

  “Because there will be something there for us,” Mitch answered. “It was coded as useless advice to avoid the planetary effect for a favor.”

  “I don’t see how,” Ease said.

  “That’s just as well. If we all understood it perfectly, there would be an effect.”

  “You’re so smart,” Tiara said. “I don’t see it either.”

  “Don’t argue, or I’ll kiss you.”

  “Argue,” she said, smiling.

  He kissed her, then paused startled. “You’re taller!”

  The others checked. Tiara was indeed slightly taller than she had been. That meant that the exchange of favors had not quite balanced. The others were unchanged, which simply meant that Tiara, as the active party, had been affected more. The difference was slight and hardly made a difference, fortunately.

  There was a path leading to the sharply defined edge of the gray face. As they followed it, their tilt increased, until they seemed to be climbing a steep slope. They had to be sure of their footing.

  Then they came to the edge. Beyond it was the blue face, like the other side of a mountain ridge. They straddled it carefully, for a moment looking at both landscapes, then started down the blue.

  As they went the slope decreased, though the terrain was flat, and they walked increasingly upright. That made progress easier. Actually there were hills and valleys, but it was the underlying orientation that counted. Meanwhile they passed fields of blue plants with blue flowers, a blue stream, and saw blue birds of all types. The most common were in the shape of a J: blue J’s.

  A blue dusk approached as the path led them to a way station where they could spend the night.

  A man was there, poring over a kind of blue paper with whitish lines. “Oh, hello foreign travelers,” he said. “I am the Blue Prince, checking the specifications for this shelter. It seems to be in order.” He rolled up the paper. “It is important that these things be constructed correctly.”

  Blue prince, Kandy thought. Blue prints. The puns remained in good order, here on Pyramid.

  They ate their boxes and settled down for the night. Mitch and Tiara were in one corner, Pewter was by himself, and that left Ease and Astrid. “I don’t want to sleep in this dress,” she said. “I might knock off a sequin.”

  “Take it off,” Ease said. “I won’t mind.”

  “It’s not dark enough. You’ll freak out.”

  “Maybe I won’t. Maybe we could--” She had drawn up her skirt to show her panties, and he had freaked out. He was sound asleep.

  “You really don’t need to worry about being bothered by men when you sleep,” Kandy said, amused.

  “True,” Astrid agreed. “Yet there are times when I wish I could turn it off. So I could . . .” She trailed off, frustrated.

  “So you could love a man,” Kandy finished for her. “Darkness would take care of the freakout, and your dark glasses would stop your death stare, but your ambiance would still take him out.”

  “Yes. I wish I could find a man who was satisfied to look at me and talk to me at a distance, without wanting me to look back at him, so we could know and appreciate each other for reasons other than my appearance. Who might touch me for no longer than he could hold his breath, and be satisfied with that. But that doesn’t seem to be the way men are made.”

  “It doesn’t,” Kandy agreed. “Yet MareAnn would not have let you join the Quest if she hadn’t thought there could be a way.”

  “I fear she was too optimistic.”

  Kandy feared the same. Yet her own situation was hardly better. She was with Ease, and could touch him freely, but never have him respond. “We have to believe that things will work out for all of us, somehow.”

  “Somehow,” Astrid agreed, as she moved a bit apart and lay down on the blue hay. “But it’s good to have you as a friend, regardless.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” And it was. “When this Quest is done, however it works out, will we have to separate?”

  Astrid didn’t answer. Kandy was faintly annoyed. Then she heard a muffled sound, and realized that Astrid was crying. That brought her own tears.

  “Come here a moment,” she called. “I think in my present form I can hug you.” She stood up, leaving Ease’s hand on her ankle.

  Astrid came, and they hugged. It was true: Kandy was somewhat ghostlike, and the basilisk fumes did not affect her much. But they had to break it off soon, because the fumes could harm Ease. Still, it was worth doing. They would continue as friends after the Quest, regardless how it turned out. That was important to them both.

  In the morning they resumed their walk, and in due course approached a blue stone house on a ridge of blue mountains. And there, tending a garden of blue gentians, was a woman wearing a small crown. A little ball orbited her head. No, it looked more like a doughnut.

  “That is Torus, the next in the procession of worlds,” Pewter said.

  Tiara approached her while the others hung back. “Princess Ida, I presume?”

  “Why yes,” the blue woman agreed. “Have we met before? I see you are from Xanth.”

  “We have not met before,” Tiara said. “I am Tiara, an ordinary girl. I am a member of a Quest, and we thought you might be able to help us.”

  “Yes we have athletic competition,” Tiara’s hair said.

  “We have what?”

  “Contested, rivaled, acquainted--”

  “Met?”

  “Whatever,” the hair agreed crossly.

  Ida laughed. “Hello Demoness Metria! Indeed we have interacted before. What are you doing in Tiara’s hair?”

  “Keeping it neat. Otherwise it looks like this.” Suddenly the hair went wild.

  “You are doing good work,” Ida agreed. She gestured to the others. “Come in, all of you. I want to learn about this Quest.” She led the way into her house, the doughnut keeping the pace.

  They entered her house and explained about the Quest. “So we thought you might be able to tell us about the anti-pun virus antidote,” Tiara concluded. “We are baffled about how to find it, or even the portal to it.”

  “I can show it to you,” Ida agreed. “But I’m afraid that won’t help you. The planet is a number of levels beyond this one.” Her eyes flicked to the orbiting Torus, which quickly retreated to the other side of her head, as if shy. “I have no idea where the portal might be.” She got up and touched the inner wall. It illuminated, and the picture of a watery planet appeared. Purple waves crashed against a yellow beach at dawn. Kandy could almost smell the tang of the water. “It’s always dawn on Antidote Planet. The elixir carries the odor. So when you smell purple waves at dawn, you’ll know you’re close.”

  “Dawn has a smell?” Ease asked.

  “Purple has a smell?” Mitch asked.

  “This is not logical,” Pewter said.

  “No, it’s magic,” Ida reminded them.

  And Kandy realized that this was what they had come to Pyramid to learn: about the smell of the antidote. That would let them know when they were close. It seemed crazy, but surely had its own logic.

  “Thank you,” Tiara said. “We will keep that in mind.”

  It was time to move on to their next Event. “We won’t burden you further, Princess,” Tiara said.

  “Oh, do you have to go so soon? I would like to catch up on the latest news from Xanth. I am married there, but not here, and it does get lonely. I would like to know more about all of yo
u, as I see you are unusual folk.” She glanced at Mitch, evidently recognizing his talent of sending ideas, and Kandy realized she had an idea about that, her talent being the idea, albeit on a much larger scale. “I have plenty of room for guests.”

  Tiara glanced at the others. “We can go tomorrow,” she said.

  Kandy knew they were in for a very nice evening. That was just as well, because they had no real idea what their next event would be.

  Chapter 10:

  Troll

  They found themselves back in Xanth—they could tell by the colors—but in a thick fog. Really thick. It was uncomfortable even to breathe the dense air.

  “What is this?” Mitch asked.

  “A pea-soup fog,” Pewter answered. “So we know that puns remain viable here.”

  “Yuck!” Tiara said. “It’s making my dress stick to me.”

  “Mine too,” Astrid said. “I prefer eating pea soup to bathing in it.”

  “We shall simply have to walk until we are out of it,” Pewter said.

  “Walk where?” Mitch asked. “I see no path.”

  “I don’t see much of anything,” Ease said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Downhill,” Tiara said. “Where maybe there’s a river or pond. We’ll need to wash it off.”

  “I’m outa here,” Tiara’s hair said. “I hate pea soup.” But if her departure freed Tiara’s hair, there was no sign of it in the thick fog.

  They made their way cautiously downhill, able to see only an arms-reach ahead. They seemed to be in a trackless jungle, the vegetation filling every crevice. They kept having to back off and try for another avenue through the tangle, getting dirtier as they went.

  This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Kandy thought of an unlikely way to handle it. She sent the thought to Ease.

  “How about an idea, Mitch,” Ease suggested.

  “Idea?”

  “Send it to the fog: it’s got business elsewhere.”

  Mitch paused, considering. “It’s inanimate, but if it is messing us up on purpose, it’s got a mind. I’ll try.” He concentrated.

  The fog abruptly lifted and floated off for parts unknown.

  “It worked!” Tiara exclaimed.

  “It did, didn’t it,” Mitch agreed. “You’re a genius, Ease.” But of course he knew the real origin of the thought.

  Now, able to see farther than they could reach, they made better progress. Soon they found a stream meandering through the thicket. It paused when it saw them, then resumed its flow.

  “Don’t touch it until we know it’s safe,” Mitch warned.

  A young rabbit hopped up. “Hi, folk!” it called. “I’m a bun—the lowest form of rabbit.” Then it hopped into the water with a splash, and out the other side.

  “The water’s safe,” Tiara said. “It didn’t hurt that bunny.”

  “True,” Mitch agreed. Then he saw something else. “What is that?”

  The others looked. It was a dead tree, with clothing piled at its base. “A deceased fur tree,” Pewter said. “It shed its furs when it died.”

  “Isn’t that a pun? A fur tree with furs?”

  “True. Probably an Aqua Fur, considering where it is growing.” Then Pewter paused. “The virus!”

  “Set up your firewall!”

  Pewter did, and there was the faint crackling as it got established.

  “But the virus didn’t take out the punny rabbit,” Tiara said.

  “This tree is evidence that the virus is in the vicinity, however,” Mitch said. “It may be thin as yet, catching some things and not others. Pewter has to maintain the firewall.”

  “Meanwhile we need to wash off the dirt and caked pea soup,” Tiara said. “But how can we separate, if we have to stay within the firewall?”

  “I suggest that we declare an Adult Conspiracy truce,” Astrid said. “We’re all adults anyway. We will ignore each other’s exposed bodies until we can get clothed again.”

  “But if I see--” Ease began.

  “Someone will snap her fingers to bring you out of it,” Astrid said.

  “Seems reasonable,” Mitch said. “Truce.”

  Then Ease stripped, set his clothes and the board beside the stream, and waded into the water.

  The others followed suit, or rather unsuit, and in less than a moment apiece they were all in the water scrubbing off the soup. Mitch unbound his hair shirt and dipped his long hair into the water, rinsing out the soup.

  “I don’t need this,” Tiara’s hair said. “I’m taking a break. See you later, alligator.” A puff of smoke floated out of the hair, then vanished. The demoness was gone. Tiara’s hair immediately went wild, but she grabbed it and plunged it into the water for the rinse.

  Theoretically the men were busy getting clean, but Mitch and Ease’s eyes were inspecting the two women as they washed. Mitch had by now seen every part of Tiara, but sneak peeks were different. The girls were pretending not to notice. Only Pewter was properly tending to business. Kandy was able to watch them all without seeming to. She realized that the wandering eyes that had bothered her before the Quest were lurking in all men, especially when unclothed women were in sight.

  Then something happened that only Kandy was in a position to see. The water of the stream surged over the bank and swept up their clothing and the board. Suddenly Kandy was floating downstream along with the two dresses and the men’s outfits. HELP! she thought to them all in capital bold italics.

  “Oh, bleep!” Astrid swore. “The sequins!”

  They splashed after the lost clothing, but they were bare bodied and bare footed, and there were evidently nettles close by the water and sharp stones beneath it. They could not keep up with the flow. Kandy knew that Pewter might have changed reality in that spot, but he had to maintain the firewall instead. They were in trouble.

  “We can’t keep up by trying to wade,” Mitch said. “We’ll have to swim.”

  They started swimming, but even so they were not gaining on the clothing, only keeping it in sight.

  The stream was growing, becoming wider and deeper. There were other things floating in it, such as a belt that seemed to be made of fragments of stone that banged into Kandy’s board in the current. “Watch where you’re going, splinter face!” the belt exclaimed angrily.

  YOU’RE AN ASS! she thought back at it.

  “I’m more that than that. I’m an ass-teroid belt, wood-for-brains.”

  Kandy realized that it wasn’t worth arguing with an arrogant pun.

  They floated through a section with water lilies. No, these were made of paper, with attached pencils. They were lily pads. But some were spoiled, no longer any good for writing on; they were hardly more than goo. They must have been caught by the pun virus and destroyed. That meant that Pewter was right to maintain his firewall; he would not survive long without it.

  Then the water swirled into a cave, carrying them both along. Kandy glimpsed the words CAVE CANEM printed over it. What kind of a cave was a canem?

  A huge male dog stood inside the cave. Oh—it was a dog cave.

  The dog plunged his head down and snapped the board out of the water. Then, discovering that it wasn’t edible, he dropped it and went after Tiara’s dress.

  At which point Tiara herself arrived in the cave. “Hey, that’s mine!” she cried angrily.

  The dog dropped the dress, slavering. “I’ll byte you!” he said as he plunged into the water, jaws gaping.

  Just in time for Mitch to arrive. He was not normally a violent man, but the threat to Tiara galvanized him. “First you’ll have to byte me!” He whipped off his shirt, formed his hair into a loop, and flung it over the dog’s head. The loop tightened about the burly neck.

  That got the dog’s attention. He turned on Mitch, but Mitch was already tightening the lasso into a hangman’s knot and the dog was gasping. Meanwhile Tiara escaped, carried on by the current.

  Pewter and Astrid arrived. “Do you need help?” Astrid called.

  “No, just get
on out of the cave,” Mitch called back. “I’ll let him go when you’re safe, so he can’t byte you.”

  “That’s not byte, it’s bite,” Pewter said.

  “Whatever. Get out of here!”

  They looked uncertain, but the current was bearing them on.

  Ease arrived. “There’s my board!” he exclaimed, swimming toward it. Then he saw Mitch struggling with the dog just beyond it.

  The dog’s efforts caused both him and Mitch to fall into the water. “I’d better let him go,” Mitch said. “I don’t want to drown him.”

  Kandy realized that not only was Mitch courageous in combat, he was decent. He didn’t want to hurt the dog whose cave they had invaded, he just wanted to restrain him until the others got past.

  Ease got his hand on the board. “Okay, let him go,” he said. “I’ll whack him if he comes after us.”

  “Oops, I can’t,” Mitch said. “My hair’s hopelessly tangled.

  “I can fix that,” Ease said. He dropped the board, put his hands on the tangle of hair and in two thirds of a moment had untangled it. That was his talent at work, making a difficult task easy.

  The dog, freed was about to turn on them both. But Kandy, back in the water, sent him a thought: HUGE DOG BONE IN WATER!

  The dog immediately splashed after the bone. That was actually the asteroid belt. Mitch and Ease swam away as the dog and belt argued about bytes and asses.

  Their group was back in the stream, following the clothing, while Kandy floated behind them. There was a grove of man-shaped trees whose roots were interlaced above and below the water. Kandy recognized them: mangroves.

  The people were understandably wary of the complicated roots, and slowed despite allowing the clothes to drift farther ahead. Kandy had no choice, and was caught by a swift little current that zipped her right through the grove and to the clothes. At least they were reunited to that extent.

  Then the stream coursed into another cave. Kandy was wary of that, after the business with the cave dog, but what could she do? At least it couldn’t be worse than the big dog. The water circled and sucked down, entering below the surface.