Xone of Contention

by Anthony, Piers

  “Okay.” The business of the talents bothered him, but he wanted to figure it out better before scaring her with his dark conjectures.

  She spied a pillow bush, harvested several nice pillows, and set them on the beach. Then she lay down on them, closed her eyes, and slept. She could do that much more readily than he could; in fact he had trouble sleeping in daylight, even when he felt logy. As he did now.

  He tried again to make a solid illusion, and failed again. It definitely wasn’t working. So probably he was right: this island stole talents. That was why it was deserted; regular Xanth folk would know better than to set foot on it.

  He found a suitable tree, sat in the sand before it, and leaned back against the trunk, looking out across the water. Justin and Breanna would have to come by water or air, and either way, this was the best way to see them. At the moment the lake was quiet, and so was the sky. There was just one puffy cloud relaxing in the sunlight, evidently having nothing better to do at the moment.

  Idly, he tried to figure out what the cloud resembled. A mushroom? A squashed bug? A human face? No, none of those; it was just a blob. A face would have eyes and mouth and ears. Eyes there and there, and ears to either side, and a bulbous nose. Yes, like that.

  Edsel blinked. It was a face! But it hadn’t been before. It had been largely shapeless.

  Could it be? With sudden excitement, he focused on the cloud. Bug, he thought. With six legs, and wings, and antenna, and huge bug eyes.

  Slowly the cloud shifted, sprouting legs. The ears became wings. Two antenna grew at one end. And the human eyes became bulging bug eyes.

  He was doing it! But just to be sure, he tried another form. Something that couldn’t be confused for natural. A geometric form. A triangle.

  The edges of the cloud fuzzed. The outline changed. It became a triangle.

  “I have a new talent,” he breathed. “The island didn’t steal my talent, it exchanged it.” He glanced at Pia, decorously asleep. “And it must have exchanged hers too.”

  Then he had a sober second thought. What good was shaping clouds? Sure, it could be fun, but it wouldn’t feed him or get him un-lost. At least the solid illusions could have helped him scare off a monster. So he wasn’t better off.

  But maybe Pia had done better. He would have her look for her new talent, when she woke. Maybe it would be more useful than her original one had proved to be. One would have thought that seeing one day into the future would be phenomenally useful, but circumstances had nullified it. Maybe there was a lesson of life there, if he could figure it out.

  Meanwhile, he pondered the likely rules of changes of talents. If the exchange happened when a person first touched the island, which seemed likely considering that slight shock they had felt, would it do it again if a person left the island and returned? That seemed likely, because the island couldn’t be presumed to be intelligent. It just had this property of switching talents with whoever touched it.

  And if the first time switched out his original talent, would a second time bring it back? Well, there was a way to find out.

  Edsel got up and went to the boat. He pushed it into the water, then stepped carefully into it. He paddled it out a few strokes, then reversed and came back in. Was that far enough?

  He brought it close, and stepped back onto the beach. And felt the shock. So he was right about that much.

  He looked at the cloud, which was trying to drift out of range. He concentrated, trying to form it into a square. Nothing happened.

  He tried to make a solid illusion. Nothing happened.

  He pondered. So there had been an exchange, but not a reversion. So he must have a new talent, essentially random. He would have to figure it out.

  So what could it be? He had lucked out the first time, idly watching the cloud. Now he had no idea. But maybe his contemplation of the cloud hadn’t been completely random; maybe his new talent had guided him. Edsel wasn’t much of a believer in lucky coincidences; usually there were reasons for things whose logic could be discovered by the right sort of search. This flowed to that, which flowed to the other. So maybe he should just let his mind drift, and he would come across it.

  He sat down and leaned back against the tree. And the tree gave way.

  He jumped up, startled. The tree had sunk a short distance into the ground. How could that be? It was solid; it hadn’t done that before.

  Unless his talent had done it.

  Edsel pondered, then put his arms around the trunk and pushed down. The trunk sank lower.

  That was it. He walked to a nearby boulder and put his hand on the top, pressing down. The stone sank.

  Interesting, but what good was it? He was not a pile driver. And it couldn’t be good for the tree. Could he reverse it?

  He walked back to the tree, put his arms around it, and lifted. Nothing happened. So this was a one way talent.

  “Sorry, tree,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t know my own strength.”

  Then he walked to the boat, lifted one foot to step into it, and hesitated. Would he make it sink into the ground?

  He decided not to risk it. He nudged it onto the water, not ever pushing down. The water should keep it floating, as long as it didn’t touch ground. He stepped in, and it didn’t sink. So it was only when he pushed down with something other than his feet that the talent worked. That was a relief.

  He paddled out a stroke, then back to shore. He stepped out. There was the tingle. Good.

  He returned to the boulder and pressed down. It didn’t budge. He looked up at the cloud, trying to shape it into a perfect circle. It ignored him, and fled beyond the horizon. He tried to make a solid illusion. Nothing.

  Okay, he had a new talent. What was it? He returned to the tree and settled back against it, noting its solidity; the tree was now shorter than it had been, but still tall enough to reach the lower sky. So he hadn’t done it too much harm.

  His mind scanned the scene and the universe. No notion of a talent came to him. He tried guessing and got nowhere. Could he stir up a dust devil in the sand? No. Could he turn the sun green? No. Could he conjure a mint plant? No. Could he make the sand slippery? No. Could he make a protective shield around himself? No. Could he become a super vacuum cleaner that sucked up everything? No, and he was getting a bit crazy.

  Suppose his new talent was something really specialized, that couldn’t be tested here and now? Like making the evil cloud Fracto assume human form and walk on the ground? In that case he would not be able to identify it now. So he might as well assume that it was not of that type, and keep looking.

  Could his talent apply to his mental ability, such as having a photographic memory? That would be great! But when he tried to remember what the scenery was like behind him, without looking, he couldn’t. So that wasn’t it.

  Finally he gave it up. He didn’t know what his new talent was, so he couldn’t use it, so it was useless to him. So he would just fetch another talent.

  He went to the boat, but as he shoved it into the water, his hand slipped, and it drifted out of his reach. “Bleep!” he swore. He would have to splash after it.

  He stepped in the water—and his foot found firm lodging. Had he landed on a rock just under the surface? No, his foot was on the water.

  Could it be? He put his weight on it, and set his other foot down. It too landed on solidity. He was walking on water!

  Now that could be a useful talent. He wouldn’t need the boat any more. He could even maybe carry Pia across a stream, if she didn’t weigh too much now. So he would keep this one.

  He caught the boat, and shoved it back to land. Then he stepped back on the beach himself—and felt the tingle.

  Oh, no! He had lost the new talent already. Walking on water had counted as leaving the island, and so it had been exchanged. Bleep!

  He tested it, just to be sure. His foot sank into the water.

  “What are you doing?” Pia demanded behind him.

  He jumped, splashing
himself worse. “I was trying to walk on water,” he said, shamefacedly.

  “I’ve heard of arrogance, but this is extreme.”

  “I found out how to change talents. I was just able to walk on water, but I lost it.” He went on to explain.

  She was interested. “I can learn my talent by just relaxing and checking what occurs to me?”

  “Maybe. It worked for me, more or less.”

  “Breanna told me about twins she knew named More and Less. Morton and Lester, actually. They have a joint talent to turn into humanoid crossbreeds, more or less human.”

  “Like elves or ogres? I hope we don’t have that talent. But you can try for others.”

  “No need to egg me on.” She experimented. Nothing happened. “I can’t think of anything,” she said, gesturing with the blue egg in her hand.

  “Well, sometimes it just isn’t obvious. Maybe we should just walk along the shore and see what occurs.”

  “As I foresaw us doing, yesterday,” she agreed. She glanced at the egg. “What do I do with this?”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I didn’t get it. I—” She stared at it.

  “You conjured it!” he exclaimed. “You can conjure things.” “Maybe I can,” she agreed, awed. “I did think of an egg.”

  “You said ‘Don’t egg me on,’ ” he agreed.

  She concentrated. “I want a pair of hiking boots,” she said. Nothing happened. “I want an ice cream sundae.” Nothing.

  “Try another egg,” Edsel suggested.

  “But I don’t want another egg.”

  A second egg appeared, in her other hand. This one was green.

  “That’s it,” Edsel said. “You conjure eggs. That’s all.”

  “Bleep.” There wasn’t even any underage person nearby, but now they were self-censoring themselves.

  “But if you step off the island, you can exchange your talent for another.”

  “I’m game.” She set down the eggs, and he helped her get into the boat.

  “I think all you need to do is get your feet off the land,” he said. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

  She got out of the boat. As her foot touched the sand, she paused. “I felt it.”

  “It’s the exchange. Now to see what you have.”

  “I hope it’s more useful.” She looked around. She concentrated. “It’s not summoning eggs, anyway.”

  “Right. And mine’s not walking on water.”

  She laughed. “If you can walk on water, I can walk on air.” She took several exaggerated steps.

  Edsel stared.

  She glanced down at him. “What are you staring at? My legs?”

  “That too,” he said faintly.

  “Well, stop. I don’t—” Then she looked at her feet. They were half a foot above the ground.

  “You are walking on air,” he breathed.

  “Get me down!”

  He caught her around the waist and hauled her toward the sand. She seemed to have the buoyancy of a balloon, and wasn’t hard to bring down to the ground.

  “Oh, I felt the tingle,” she said.

  “Because you left the island—and returned,” he said. “Now you have a different talent.”

  “Just as well,” she muttered.

  They walked along the shore, as she had foreseen. When they figured out an unwanted talent, they took turns lifting each other off the ground and getting new talents. Actually, after the first time, Edsel was worried about Pia’s strength, trying to haul him up, so he tried jumping. That did it too. Talents were flighty, here in the Isle of Talents.

  “At this rate, we won’t be able to hang on to talents we like,” Pia complained. “We need some way to anchor good ones.”

  They came to a sign. CONFUSED? TALK TO THE TELLER

  “What’s the teller?” Edsel asked.

  “Here’s something,” Pia said. She picked up a small disk from a pedestal beside the sign.

  “Maybe it’s the teller,” Edsel said.

  She held it up. “Are you the teller?”

  “Yes,” the disk said.

  Startled, she dropped it. Edsel picked it up. “How do you work?”

  “I announce your talent.”

  Edsel glanced at Pia. “This could be useful.” Then he addressed the teller again. “What’s my talent?”

  There was a tingle in the hand holding the disk. “To turn things transparent, so that only their ideas show.”

  “Ideas?” But the disk was silent. It seemed it didn’t qualify its announcements.

  Pia took the disk. “What’s my talent?”

  “To become what is needed, while it is needed, when you know what is needed.”

  “I don’t understand.” But the disk was silent.

  “This is nevertheless better than nothing,” Edsel said.

  “I suppose,” she agreed doubtfully. “But doesn’t it seem rather, well, convenient that we should encounter this helpful sign and disk right when we needed them?”

  “You mean, like a path to a tangle tree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good point. Let’s put it back.”

  She set the disk back on its pedestal and they went on.

  “I don’t think I like becoming what is needed,” Pia said. “That might be a meal for a dragon.”

  “Or a sex object for an ardent man.”

  She had the grace to laugh. “That’s not a talent. That’s the state of being female.”

  “Then jump and change it.”

  “Then I won’t know what my talent is any more.”

  “Um,” he agreed. “Maybe we do need that teller.”

  “Maybe so,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I feel as if I’m being herded.”

  “Yes. Let’s take it until we get talents we want, then leave it and the island.”

  “Yes.”

  Pia leaped, exchanging her talent. But Edsel wanted to verify his. He looked for something to turn transparent. All he saw was the wooden pedestal they were approaching. So he focused on that.

  It became transparent. Inside was the wavering image of a tree.

  “It’s a tree,” Pia said. “Or it was. It still has the idea of its nature. That’s sad.”

  “And I suppose if I tried it on a person—”

  “Don’t try it on me!” she cried, alarmed.

  What, indeed, would become of her if he turned her transparent? These talents didn’t seem to be reversible. This one could be dangerous. So he ended it by leaping.

  Pia picked up the teller. “What’s my talent?” she asked.

  “To amplify noise.”

  “I don’t like that.” She leaped. “Now what’s my talent?”

  “Making paintings come to life.”

  She considered. “Maybe that will do.” She kept her feet on the ground and handed the disk to Edsel.

  “What’s my talent,” he asked.

  “Waxing the moon’s green cheese.”

  Edsel laughed, then realized that the teller was serious. In Xanth, the moon really did have green cheese on the side facing the ground. On the side facing away, he understood, it was milk and honey, because that was not polluted by the sights it saw. Thus a honeymoon was by definition to the far side.

  But how was he going to get to the moon, to encase its cheese in wax? So this did not seem useful. He jumped. “What’s my talent?”

  “Returning things to their original state.”

  Now that seemed useful. He tried another question. “Where did this talent come from?”

  “A boy named Reuben.”

  Who must have visited the island, and exchanged his talent before he knew. Too bad for him.

  “Let’s get away from here with what we’ve got,” Pia said tightly.

  “Keeping our feet firmly on the ground,” Edsel agreed. He tucked the teller into his pocket, in case of future need.

  They strode back to the boat, got carefully in, and paddled it away from the island. Edsel felt relief; th
e island had seemed nice, but eerie in its lack of people or creatures. Now he knew why: they didn’t want their talents involuntarily changed. Those who did want change would come only long enough to get a useful one, then would flee, never to return.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they pulled clear of the cove.

  He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I guess we had better return the boat. We don’t seem to be finding much we want on the lake anyway. Then we can look for the enchanted path, and our Companions.”

  “They should be looking for us.”

  “So maybe we’ll meet halfway.”

  She didn’t argue, which meant she was as worried as he was. He did not want to get caught out at night. But how they were going to plow through that tangle of briars to get back to the campsite he didn’t know.

  Edsel felt something in his pocket. “I forgot to return the teller to its pedestal,” he said.

  “We can’t go back now; our talents will change.”

  She was right. He would just have to keep the teller, at least for now.

  They took the boat back to where they had found it, and tied it in place. Apparently no one had missed it, which was another relief.

  They walked across the plain. “I think the camp is that way,” Edsel said, pointing.

  “Where the very thickest brambles are.”

  “Right. So we’ll have to be a bit indirect. There seems to be thinner cover there to the side.”

  It turned out to be mixed field and forest, rather pleasant. But of course this was day; it might be another matter by night. They passed an apple pie tree and picked a ripe pie, and sat down to eat it.

  “I’d better test my talent,” Pia said. “But I don’t see a painting to bring to life.”

  “Maybe you can draw one in the dirt,” he suggested, half humorously.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said witheringly. Then she reconsidered. “The way things are literal, here in Xanth, maybe that would work after all.”

  “Sure.” He cleared a place for her, smoothing it over.

  She found a stick and drew a crude picture of a rabbit, with two huge long ears and a wiggly nose. Then she focused on it. “Come to life,” she said.

  The rabbit jumped out of the dirt and bounded away. Then it turned and bounded back, looking at them. It was lopsided, with brown fur, but definitely alive.