Board Stiff

by Piers Anthony

  “I am Tiara, and my talent is my wild hair, which actually floats.”

  “I am Com Pewter, a machine. My talent is changing reality in my immediate vicinity, but I can’t practice it now because I am busy maintaining a firewall to keep the pun virus from destroying me.”

  “I am Ease. My talent is to make complicated things easy.”

  “I am Astrid Basilisk-Cockatrice, transformed to human form. My talent is killing folk with my stare, which is why I wear these dark glasses. But I do not mean you any harm.”

  “And you hope to save the puns?” Pastor asked. “That’s a curious Quest.”

  “Xanth is largely made of puns,” Mitch said. “Without puns, this would be a bleak land. That’s apart from folk like Pewter, who deserve to retain their existence. Now you two: what are your talents? We may need to pool our assorted talents to manage to escape this unkind confinement.”

  Kandy knew what was on his mind: they could escape at any time by using a sequin. But other folk would not necessarily understand, or care to find themselves in a complete shift of venue, a new event. It might be that such a shift would do them more harm than good.

  “If you wish,” Pastor said. “Our two talents complement each other. Mine is to reinvent the past, though it operates indirectly. Hence my name, Past-or. I can’t just change the past by fiat. But I can describe it to others, and the more people who believe it, the more real it is. So I am a storyteller, in a way, because what is a story but His Story? Whatever most people accept becomes official.”

  “I don’t follow that,” Mitch said. “Many folk believe lies, but that doesn’t make the lies truth.”

  “If it is a lie I spread, it can become the truth,” Pastor said. “That’s my magic.”

  Mitch nodded. “That is potent magic! But can you use it to get the two of you and the five of us to have avoided being drugged and imprisoned?”

  “No, because it’s not our belief that lends force to our plight,” Pastor said. “It’s the belief of the villagers. If I were with them, and able to spread a story that there had been no drugging or imprisonment, and enough of them came to believe it, then it would become reality. But as it is, the most who could unbelieve our captivity are seven, while there are dozens of villagers who believe it. Only if I could escape, and talk to them, without their realizing who I am, could I change it. And of course if I could escape, I would not need to change it.”

  Mitch nodded. “So it’s like stepping in a hole you can’t step out of.”

  “Pretty much,” Pastor agreed. “Now my sister’s talent is to reinvent the future, hence her name, Futura. We named ourselves once we discovered our talents. She can dream and tell stories of far off lands and kingdoms and fair princesses in danger by ugly trolls and fire breathing dragons, and before you know it there will be a far-off kingdom with exactly those things. Provided enough people believe it.”

  “So can she tell a tale of our miraculous escape from this dungeon and make it come true?”

  “Again, no,” Futura replied. “You know the nature of her talent, and that what she says is just a story. If you did not know, then it could happen.”

  “Like Princess Ida,” Mitch said. “She can make something true by agreeing with a person who believes it.”

  “Yes,” Futura agreed. “She is my idol. But my agreement alone isn’t effective. My whole audience has to believe. So Pastor and I could not free ourselves, in the past or the future, and neither could you. But if I told a persuasive story to the villagers, and enough of them came to believe, then it could be true.”

  “Again, you need to get free in order to accomplish your freedom,” Mitch said.

  “It’s a paradox,” she agreed sadly.

  “But if there were a way for you to get out of here, into the village, unrecognized, then the two of you could tell stories of the past and future that would eliminate this whole captivity.”

  “And we would no longer need to,” she said. “That’s another aspect of the paradox.”

  “Not necessarily,” Mitch said. “We just might have a way out. But it has its own paradox, in that we would probably be nowhere near the village.”

  “Is there any other way out?” Astrid asked, not eager to discuss the mechanism of her dress.

  “No, the oubliette is completely walled in,” Pastor said. “The only access is via the hole in the top. Every few hours they lower food and drink so we won’t starve. There’s a bit of a trench at the edge that we use for refuse.”

  Meanwhile a wasp flew up and landed on Kandy’s board. It seemed to sniff the wood, then took a bite.

  OFF! Kandy thought at it.

  Startled, the wasp flew off. But it was joined in another moment by several more wasps, all quite interested in the wood.

  Now Astrid noticed them. “Paper wasps,” she said. Then she reconsidered. “Except they can’t be, because that’s a pun.”

  Mitch smiled. “You’re used to wasps made of folded paper,” he said. “Those are a pun. But there are also real wasps who make paper from wood. These are that type. No pun.”

  “They come and go,” Pastor said. “They leave us alone and we leave them alone. They mostly feed on the lichen on the wall. But they do seem attracted to that wooden board.”

  “Do they live here?” Tiara asked.

  “No, we have not seen any hive. They just feed here.”

  “Then they must have an access.”

  “I suppose so. But it would be a wasp-sized hole. Nothing we could use.”

  “I wonder,” Mitch said. “The air here is reasonably fresh. There may be more of an access than we see.”

  “We have had nothing to do for two days,” Futura said. “We inspected every stone of the wall. None are missing.”

  “I wonder,” Mitch repeated. “Let’s track the wasps.”

  Pastor shrugged. “Why not.”

  They watched the wasps as they flew toward and away from the enticing board. Meanwhile other wasps lifted from the wall and flew to a particular stone, where they disappeared.

  “Look at that,” Mitch said. “They fly right into the stone without crashing. It’s illusion!”

  “Illusion!” Astrid repeated. “And big enough for a person to fit through.”

  Now they were all really interested. But the stone was too high for any of them to reach.

  “Maybe I can do it,” Tiara said. “Boost me up, Mitch.”

  Mitch lifted her up to his shoulders. Then her hair flared out and drew on up into the air. She was floating! She managed to reach the wall and put her hand to the key stone. And her hand passed through it to the elbow.

  Tiara put her other hand to the stone, and through it. She caught on to something beyond it. “There’s a passage!” she gasped. “I can feel its rough walls, and the air coming down through it.” Then she lost her grip and fell slowly until Mitch caught her.

  “Well, now,” Mitch said.

  “This is amazing,” Pastor said. “We never thought of this, and certainly did not invent it. It was there all along.”

  “All along,” Futura agreed. “Maybe we can escape after all.”

  “Maybe we can,” Astrid agreed.

  “But now I am wondering whether we really should escape,” Mitch said.

  The others looked at him. “You prefer to be fed to the dragon?” Pastor asked.

  “No, it’s more complicated. Our quest had taken us to a number of odd aspects of Xanth, and in each there turns out to have been some reason for it. At first it was to recruit the remaining members of the party. Then it was to glean information that should help us when we come to the finale. We have not yet discovered the point of this imprisonment. It may be that we need to go through their trial in order to discover it.”

  Pastor shook his head. “You have rare dedication. I would be extremely wary of the risk.”

  “Well, I’m thinking that you and Futura can escape, and talk to the villagers anonymously, and perhaps persuade them that they are not
against puns or strangers. Then we would not face much risk.”

  “We could try,” Pastor said. “But it can take time for a consensus to develop. With only two days remaining before the trial, its chancy.”

  “Focus on just one thing,” Mitch said. “That puns are not enemies but friends, and should be preserved. If they accept that, the case against us will fade.”

  “It may,” Pastor said. “But probably not all the way, in that brief time. We can’t guarantee your acquittal.”

  “Well, we have other means, if necessary,” Mitch said, glancing at Astrid.

  “Oh, the basilisk,” Pastor said. “Who can kill with a stare. But that would be ugly.”

  Kandy suspected that Mitch had been thinking of the dress and sequins Astrid wore. But he handled it with aplomb. “Yes, so we prefer an amicable settlement. Let’s help you on your way, so that you will have as much time as possible to change village history.”

  “I should check it first,” Astrid said. “To be sure there are no dangers in the tunnel.”

  “Thank you,” Futura said. “I never thought I would say that to a basilisk.”

  “She’s a nice person,” Tiara said. “She’ll make some man an excellent wife, someday.”

  Pastor’s sentiment seemed mixed. “I can see that she has a very nice form. But how could there be love, if she can’t directly look at any man eye to eye without killing him?”

  “There’s a way,” Tiara said. “We will find it.”

  Pastor did not argue the case, but it was evident that he was not persuaded.

  They made a human pyramid with Mitch and Ease at the base with the board resting on their shoulders. Then Tiara stood on it, her hair making her light and stabilizing her. Then Astrid joined her on the board. She put her foot in Tiara’s linked hands and reached up to the invisible hole. She found it, got a hold, and drew herself up, in the process showing a good deal of her legs. Then she disappeared into the hole, first her head and upper section, then her mid-section, then her legs.

  They dismantled the pyramid, carefully. “She should not be long,” Mitch said. “We’re not that deep underground.”

  Pastor made no response. He stood there looking up, unmoving.

  “Oh!” Futura exclaimed, alarmed. “Something’s happened to him!”

  “Don’t be concerned,” Tiara said. “He just saw Astrid’s panties and freaked out.”

  “But she’s a basilisk!”

  “In human form,” Tiara said. “Men don’t much care about a woman’s real nature, just her form, and Astrid was given the best. Her panties are potent. Mitch and Ease have learned not to look.” She snapped her fingers.

  Pastor recovered. “Did something happen?”

  “A passing indisposition,” Mitch said smoothly. “Astrid is on her way.”

  Before long an arm appeared in the stone. “I’m back,” Astrid called.

  They quickly reformed their pyramid and helped her safely out and down.

  “Any danger?” Mitch asked.

  “No. Just some harmless centipedes.”

  “Centipedes! That’s a pun.”

  “No, nickelpedes is the pun. Centipedes are just multi-legged bugs. The passage leads up to an old covered stone well. Whoever built the oubliette must have made it deliberately and hidden the exit so others wouldn’t know. There are even steps in the steepest part of it.”

  “That’s ideal,” Pastor said. “Thank you, Astrid.”

  “You’re welcome.” She glanced at him a fraction of a moment longer than necessary, as if assessing him as a potential companion. But he was shying away from her, so she knew he was not a prospect.

  They formed the pyramid once again, this time helping Pastor and then Futura up into the hole. Ease started to freak as Futura’s legs swung over his head, but Kandy snapped him out of it with a curt thought. He had learned not to look at Astrid’s legs, but not, it seemed, at others.

  “Thank you!” Futura’s voice called down. “We’ll do our best!”

  “Welcome!” they chorused after her.

  They were about to settle down to wait and rest, when there was activity at the entrance hole. The disk of light appeared as it was uncovered, and the pallet slowly descended. It was an unconscious woman. They lifted her off and put her on the hay, as Pastor and Futura had done for them, and let the pallet swing back up. Then it came down again, with another woman.

  “They certainly don’t care about the safety of the distaff,” Mitch muttered. “We could attack them while they are unconscious and do anything.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Tiara snapped.

  “He has a valid point,” Pewter said. “Unconscious women are often considered fair game. The villagers seem not to care.”

  In due course the first woman recovered consciousness. “What happened?” she asked dizzily.

  Tiara did the honors. “You were drugged and lowered into the oubliette for safekeeping until the trial. I am Tiara, one of several others here.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” the woman protested.

  “Neither did we,” Tiara said. “We merely stated that we are on a Quest to save the puns of Xanth, and it seems they don’t like puns, and here we are.”

  “Oh. I am Tani. My talent is to make a pet of any nonhuman creature.”

  “I don’t see why that would bother the villagers,” Tiara said. “Is there anything else?”

  “Well, I didn’t know what to do with myself, because I don’t need countless temporary pets. One remains a pet until I tame another, then the first reverts, so it’s really not all that useful. So I went to see the Good Magician, and he assigned me to a Quest, but it didn’t work out. For one thing he didn’t tell me that I was supposed to be the leader, not a follower. By the time I realized, I was the only one left. So I was on my way home, a sadder and not much wiser girl, when I passed though PLO Village. The last I remember is explaining about being the leader.”

  “They thought you might take over the village!” Tiara said. “So they dumped you in here.”

  “They are paranoid,” Mitch said.

  Then Tiara introduced the others, and explained about their own Quest.

  “Well, at least now I know what happened, and maybe why,” Tani said.

  The other woman stirred. Tiara went immediately to help and reassure her. It was evident that Tiara had deep sympathy for people in trouble or imprisoned, having lived as a prisoner so much of her life.

  The other turned out to be Terri, whose talent was to jump forward in time to the next morning, to escape sadness on any given day. She had passed through the village, and they had given her a free meal and inquired about her talent—and suddenly here she was in a dungeon.

  The others introduced themselves. Then they considered Terri’s case.

  “You must have said something that made them suspicious of you,” Tiara said. “Just how did you describe your talent?”

  “Well, it’s a little like a pun. To escape mourning, I go to the next morning. I have no memory of the intervening time, though nobody else ever seems to notice my absence. It does save me much grief, literally.”

  “Mourning, morning,” Tiara said. “That does sound like a kind of pun. That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “They hate puns. That’s why we’re down here. They thought you made a pun, so they drugged you and dropped you in the hole. But don’t worry; we have found a way out.”

  “I do worry. This whole business is very depressing. So I think I’ll just jump to tomorrow morning. Bye.”

  “Don’t jump yet!” Tiara said. But she was too late; Terri had already slumped to the hay.

  But then she spoke again. “Hello, folk. I am Tammi, Terri’s alter-ego. Maybe I can explain some things.”

  “Alter ego?” Tiara asked. “You mean like a different personality in the same body?” Kandy knew she was thinking of Demoness Metria, with her two alter egos.

  “Yes. I was actually the original personal
ity, but my talent spooked so many folk that they banished me and put Terri in my place. But they didn’t realize that her talent of jumping to the next morning would leave her body unattended, and so I take it back for those hours. Don’t tell.”

  “But isn’t that something Terri should know about?” Tiara asked.

  “She doesn’t want to know. She jumps ahead to leave her sadness behind; that would just bring it back. It would also require her to report that I’m not entirely gone. That could be more mischief. What other spirit might take over her body in her absence if I couldn’t?”

  Tiara shrugged. “It’s not our business, I suppose.”

  “Your name is Tammi?” Tani asked. “Mine is Tani. I hope we don’t confuse each other.”

  “Maybe we’ll be friends,” Tammi said, laughing. “Then we’ll confuse others, but not ourselves.”

  Tani laughed too. “I am short of friends at the moment.”

  Tammi returned to Tiara. “Meanwhile I may be able to do your Quest some good, because of my talent.”

  “You said it spooked others,” Tiara said. “What’s so bad about it?”

  “I see through conspiracies.”

  “Well, that seems helpful, not dangerous.”

  “Including the dread Adult Conspiracy, when I was a child.”

  “That would have been awkward,” Tiara agreed. “But really, what would be so bad about a child knowing what she will learn when she grows up anyway?”

  “It’s a power issue,” Tammi said. “If children learned how to signal the stork, they might do it and cut the adults out of the picture. Who would need adults anymore? They could be dispensed with. So the adults conspire to make sure they retain their power base. They couldn’t afford to let me blab the truth, so they got rid of me, they thought.”

  “But we wouldn’t do anything like that,” Tiara protested.

  “You were never oppressed as a child? Punished for being different?”

  It was as if she had struck Tiara with a solid pillow, rocking her back. Of course Tiara had been punished for having different hair.

  Astrid came forward. “Perhaps we should introduce the rest of us.”