Board Stiff

by Piers Anthony

  “We need to ascertain whether the colors are consistent,” Pewter said. “That is, does red mean love and white mean lethe, or do they vary? I suspect we shall need to check every bottle as we harvest it.”

  “I will open and sniff; you classify and record,” Astrid said.

  The two of them walked to the tree.

  “That leaves the rest of us,” Mitch said. “This promises to be a tedious wait. We can make camp.”

  “There is a very nice campsite close by,” Glinda said. “But for some reason no one uses it.”

  “Then we’ll be the first,” Ease said. “Where is it?”

  “This way.” Glinda walked around the chemistree, Ease, Mitch, and Tiara following. Kandy realized with a start that the men were eying the gobliness’ shapely little form from behind. Every time she thought she was used to the superficiality of men, there was something else.

  “Here,” Glinda said. “It is even marked. The Grong Grong.” Indeed, there was a sign saying GRONG GRONG.

  “What does that mean, Mommy?” Glenna asked.

  “We don’t know, dear. Folklore has it that a passing visitor from Mundania, an Austra-Alien, named it. He did not stay long enough to explain.”

  “This seems ideal,” Mitch said. “It is close, there’s a shelter, a river, and pie trees. What more could we ask?”

  “We could ask why no one uses it,” Tiara said.

  “They probably just don’t know of it,” Ease said. “If the tree is secret, maybe this campsite it secret too.”

  “Perhaps,” Glinda said. “But probably it is best to be careful. Stay close to me, Glenna.”

  “Awww,” the child said.

  Ease went to a fruit tree. “Cherries,” he said, picking several bright red ones.

  “Cherry bombs!” Glenna said, delighted.

  Ease paused with a cherry at his mouth. He had been about to bite into it. He looked at it more carefully. Then he threw it away. It exploded when it hit the ground, making a puffball of fiery smoke.

  “And pineapples!” Glenna said, delighted again. Sure enough, several were growing there, far more explosive than the cherry bombs.

  “I am beginning to appreciate why this campsite is not more popular,” Mitch said grimly.

  “But the rest looks good,” Ease said, shrugging off his close call with the cherry. “Let’s check out the shelter.”

  They went to the pavilion. It offered nice refuge from the elements, and there were piles of hay to rest on. Ease plumped down on a pile. “This is great.”

  Something stirred in the hay. Shapes boiled out of it. Kandy was alarmed.

  “Nickelpedes!” Glenna exclaimed, delighted a third time.

  Ease launched out of the hay, shedding the vicious insects, which were already tangling with his pants, trying to gouge out nickel sized chunks of flesh. He grabbed the board and whacked himself repeatedly, smashing more bugs.

  Tiara shuddered. “If I had sat there--”

  “Maybe we had better look elsewhere,” Mitch said.

  “Let’s check the river,” Ease said determinedly.

  They went to the passing river, which obligingly meandered close. Ease dipped a cupped hand into the water to fetch out water to drink.

  “Ow!” For two small fish were biting his fingers.

  “Piranha fish!” Glenna cried, delighted once more.

  “That does it,” Ease said. “This is a bad camping place.”

  “A very bad camping place,” Tiara agreed with another shudder.

  “Now I remember,” Glinda said. “That’s what Grong Grong means.”

  “It’s not an invitation but a warning,” Mitch said. “That’s why others avoid it.”

  “We shall vacate the premises,” Glinda said. “I’m sorry I suggested it. I didn’t remember. I should have.”

  There was a pie tree growing beside the river, laden with ripe pies. Ease eyed them, then shook his head, deciding not to risk it.

  They started to walk back out of it. “Wait,” Glenna said. “There’s something in the grass.”

  “It’s just a little lizard,” Ease said.

  “No. It’s a salamander.”

  “Uh-oh,” Mitch said.

  The salamander scooted across the path in front of them. Fire blazed in its trail. It paused a moment as if searching, then started spreading toward them.

  They backed up, but the river was close by. They were caught between the fire and the water.

  “Why does this smell like a trap?” Ease asked.

  “The fire’s not big yet,” Mitch said. “Use your board to beat out a section so we can cross it.”

  Ease did that, smashing the flat of the board down on the blaze. Kandy was concerned, but did manage to beat the fire out before it burned her wood. They made a gap and they quickly stepped through it.

  “I love my board,” Ease said. “I once longed for a sword, but really this is better. More versatile.”

  Kandy saw Mitch and Tiara exchange a quick glance. Ease did not know the half of it.

  They crossed a cleared court they had not noticed before. At one end was a pole supporting a metal rim. Below it was a big ball. Ease picked up the ball and bounced it on the ground.

  Suddenly a huge dog ran out on the court, growling. He was the size of a small horse. Surprised, Ease hurled the ball at him. The dog caught the ball on his nose, flipped his head, and sent it sailing up in a high arc. It passed through the hoop with a swish. Satisfied, the dog departed.

  “Big puppy,” Glenna said, pleased.

  Mitch grimaced. “The Hound of the Basketballs,” he said. “You messed with his ball.”

  Glenna glanced at the sky. “Dragons,” she said.

  “And we can be pretty sure they are more mischief,” Mitch said. “We need to hide.”

  They hurried to the side where there was a cluster of cacti. “Careful,” Glinda said. “I recognize that type. Needle cactus.”

  “I have heard of it,” Mitch said. “We don’t want to get close.”

  But they were hemmed in by the fire, which had reversed course to follow them, the basketball court, and the cactus. Only the spot where they stood seemed safe—until the dragons arrived.

  “I can help, maybe,” Glenna said.

  “Stay out of it,” Glinda snapped protectively.

  “Awww.” Then the child brightened. “But maybe you could do it, Ease. Mommy can’t tell you no.”

  “Do what?” Ease asked, eying the approaching dragons.

  “Get the ball. Throw it at a cactus. Duck. Everybody duck.”

  Ease considered, then nodded. He fetched the ball. The Hound came out again, pursuing the ball as the first dragon swooped in for a strafing run.

  “Duck!” Ease cried, and hurled the ball at the cactus. The Hound bounded after it. The ball struck the cactus as the five of them dropped to the ground.

  The cactus, enraged, fired off a volley of needles. They passed over the people, but caught the Hound in the rump and the dragon on the snoot. They also popped the ball, which exploded into tatters. The Hound whirled to bite his own needled rear, and the dragon’s stifled fire shot out of its nose, ears, and tail.

  It was hard to see the detail from the ground, but Kandy saw enough to get a notion. The Hound thought the dragon had done it, and the dragon thought the Hound had done it. They pounced on each other, chomping tails.

  “Now we flee,” Glenna said. “The cactus is out of quills.”

  They scrambled up and charged past the cactus. It quivered, but had no more ammunition. They managed to escape the Grong Grong at last.

  “That was fun,” Glenna said. Her mother rolled her eyes.

  They made their way back to the chemistree. Pewter and Astrid were concluding their survey of potions, and had a bag of bottles. “We can’t be sure these will be effective,” Pewter said. “But if you make a channel around the garden and pour some of each into it, the mixture may discourage the virus.”

  “And we found a chem
istree seed,” Astrid said, presenting it to Glenna.

  “Oooo, cool!”

  “It is good that the rest of you got to relax while we worked,” Pewter said.

  No one commented.

  “I think we don’t want to linger near Grong Grong at night,” Glinda said.

  “We don’t!” Tiara agreed.

  They returned to the mound by evening. “You will stay the night again,” Glinda said. “Our hospitality may not be much, but I think it is better than the Grong Grong.”

  “You were there?” Glower asked. “I thought no one stayed there.”

  “Daddy, it was great!” Glenna said. “There was this big dog, and a dragon, and nickelpedes and piranha fish and a salamander and a needle cactus! And we got potions to maybe protect the garden, and a seed from the chemistree. Maybe I’ll get real science in my garden!”

  “That does sound like fun,” Glower agreed. It was clear that his daughter took after him, and he was proud of that.

  “So is our business in this Event done?” Pewter asked.

  “I will try a sequin,” Tiara said. She did, but it wouldn’t take. “No, not yet.”

  Mitch sighed. “So it seems we must brave the Chasm after all.”

  In the morning they trekked back to the Gap Chasm. It looked as formidable as before, a yawning gulf they would have to cross without apparent support.

  Tiara was distinctly anxious. “I wonder if anything down there will look up and see under our skirts.”

  “We’ve all been naked more than once,” Mitch reminded her.

  “That’s not the same. Sneak peeks are worse than nudity.”

  Actually, Kandy knew, Tiara was just nervous about venturing out into seeming space unprotected. Kandy would have felt the same way, before she became an almost invulnerable board.

  “Worse,” Astrid said. “I see a cloud on the horizon, coming this way, and it looks like Fracto.”

  “How could he know we would be here?” Mitch asked.

  “He’s a demon,” Pewter said. “He knows things. Obviously he feels there remains a score to settle.”

  “That could be the danger Mexine predicted,” Tiara said. “If we have to cross, we should do it quickly, before the cloud arrives.”

  “Unless it is better to wait until he passes,” Mitch said. “Maybe he’ll make such a deluge that it will fill the Chasm and we can sail across.” He smiled, hinting that this was possibly humor.

  There was a sound behind them. “That is the growl of a hungry dragon,” Pewter said. “Coming this way. It will not be safe here for long enough.”

  “The sequins are putting us through their paces,” Mitch said. “So it seems we’d better cross now. How do we find the bridge?”

  “We feel for it,” Pewter said. He walked along the brink of the gulf, touching the edge with his toe. “Here.” He stepped out over the edge.

  The others stared. Pewter was walking in mid air. The bridge was truly invisible.

  “So be it,” Mitch said, following. He, too, stood seemingly unsupported. “Ah, there’s a hand rail. That helps.”

  “Yes,” Pewter said. “The bridge is safe, provided there is not an external problem.”

  Tiara came next. The slight wind tugged at her dress, as if to make sure something below could see under it. “This is weird.”

  Ease stepped out. “But fun.”

  Finally Astrid followed. Her dress also flexed in the breeze, flashing her legs. “Just so long as a sequin doesn’t fall off.”

  “Don’t scare us!” Mitch said.

  They moved along, a procession of five people in seeming space. The cloud rumbled angrily; Fracto saw them, and knew he would not be able to reach them before they completed their crossing.

  “Something else,” Astrid said. “Dragons. Three of them, approaching swiftly.”

  “Oh, no!” Mitch said. “Fracto enlisted help!”

  “I will deal with them,” Astrid said, removing her dark glasses. “Keep moving.”

  The dragons rapidly loomed larger, definitely orienting on the exposed party. “Can you tell what type they are?” Mitch asked nervously.

  “A fire breather. A steamer. A smoker. All are dangerous. But all I have to do is meet their gaze.”

  “I do not like this at all,” Mitch said.

  “Just keep moving,” Pewter said. “We can’t retreat.”

  They kept moving. The dragons kept coming. They were flying in a line, aiming for the crossing party.

  Kandy saw Astrid turn her head as she walked, focusing.

  The first dragon emitted a jet of fire, then veered crazily and plunged into the void below. Soon they heard the crash and explosion as it struck the ground. A plume of debris flew up and spread. Astrid had scored.

  The second dragon swelled like a blimp, then popped like a punctured balloon, its steam forming a swirling cloud as it too dropped below. Two down.

  The third dragon shook in the air, but was too close; it collided with Astrid as smoke burgeoned explosively. It was done for, but like a suicide bomber, it had taken out its object.

  Astrid screamed as she dropped out of the expanding ball of smoke and plummeted toward the ground.

  Kandy was not conscious of even thinking about it before she acted. FORNAX!

  The scene froze, the four people in mid stride, the ball of smoke in mid expansion, and Astrid below it, all in a fixed tableau. Yes, Kandy.

  SAVE ASTRID AND I WILL BE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN XANTH.

  Done.

  Then the action resumed. Astrid continued to fall, but now there was a new figure in the air. A giant roc bird appeared. It swooped down, caught Astrid with a talon, circled, climbing, and deposited her back on the invisible bridge.

  “Oh!” she said. “Thank you, Roxanne.”

  The bird squawked and departed. The line halted as the others stared. This rescue had been yea close to unbelievable.

  “Roxanne?” Mitch asked.

  “She mind talked to me as we flew,” Astrid said. “She is Roxanne Roc, who was and may still be the guardian of Sim Bird, the son of the Simurgh. It is his duty to learn everything in the universe, and he’s working on it, with Che Centaur tutoring him; he’s a very smart bird. Roxanne protects him and ferries him from place to place. She spent five hundred years egg-sitting for the Simurgh until Sim hatched, so she’s experienced. She was flying past on routine business when she spied me falling. She recognized me as a land monster and rescued me, as she is a winged monster herself. It was a courtesy call, really. I am fortunate that Roxanne was in the vicinity; otherwise I would not have fared well.”

  “Fortunate is not the applicable term,” Pewter said. “That was beyond coincidence.”

  “Actually I saw the roc and sent her a thought,” Ease said. “That Mitch relayed. She was glad to oblige.”

  Had they done that? Kandy had been too distracted to prompt him.

  “Still beyond coincidence,” Pewter said. “Roxanne is a busy bird; she does not have slack time.”

  “She saved Astrid,” Tiara said. “Why should we question it?”

  “Because if there is magic involvement, we could be in trouble.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Demon trouble.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ease asked. “There’s no Demon here.”

  Then the tableau froze again. A donkey-headed dragon appeared, floating in the air beside the bridge. “What happened here?”

  “Demon Xanth,” Pewter said. “We hope we can explain.”

  “I smell an alien,” Xanth said. “Fornax. She intervened here.”

  Uh-oh. She had intervened, and that was a Demon no-no here in Xanth’s territory.

  Kandy sent a signal the put Ease to sleep. He sagged between the rails. Kandy manifested. “I did it,” she said.

  The donkey head oriented on her. “You?”

  “My friend Astrid was falling to her likely death. I had to save her. I appealed to Fornax. I agreed to be her emissary h
ere in Xanth if she saved Astrid.”

  Astrid looked at her, startled. “You did that?”

  “I had to. You’re my friend, Astrid. I love you. I couldn’t let you die.”

  “But Kandy, you put yourself in peril!”

  “I had to,” she repeated.

  “Clarify,” the donkey said.

  “Fornax is contra-terrene, CT, antimatter, whatever. She has trouble interacting with terrene Demons,” Kandy said. “And she needs to, to contest for Points. So she needs an interface, someone who won’t go up in total conversion of matter to energy the moment she touches anything terrene. So she asked me to be her representative here in Xanth, to receive her thoughts and relay them to you when the occasion requires it. Nothing to harm the Land of Xanth or anyone or anything in it. Merely to be a mode of communication. I told her I would think about it. But then when Astrid was falling I had no time to consider. I called Fornax and told her I would do it if she saved my friend. And she saved her. I was the one at fault; Fornax did not come until I called her, and she did only what I asked her to do. She did not interfere in Xanth in any other way.”

  “This is interesting.”

  “Now, as my first act of representation, I am pleading with you to accept this role for me. I believe it is a necessary thing that someone has to do, if not me, than someone else. You may not care about me or Fornax, but this is a convenience you should have. For one thing, it will keep Fornax from messing with Xanth just to get your attention. You will not have to deal directly with her at all, just me. That should simplify things for you.”

  “Done,” Xanth said, and vanished.

  But then he reappeared. “My mortal wife says I need to do you a small favor or two in return for your sacrifice and service. She must be humored. Accordingly, I will.” He vanished again.

  A small favor? Or two? For a Demon that could be anything from a matchstick to a world, immediately or in a century. “Thank you,” Kandy said, relieved mainly that her role had been accepted, and that Fornax was not in trouble for her part.

  “Well done,” Pewter said. “Now please let us complete our crossing before the rogue cloud gets here.”

  Kandy sent a wake-up thought to Ease. He woke, and she became the board. The group resumed the crossing without further comment, and reached the other side just before Fracto got there. The cloud raged, but then blew over.