Xone of Contention

by Anthony, Piers

  “No. Like trying to trap Nimby here, so he can’t return to Xanth right away, and will lose the bet. That would mean that Edsel could not return to his body in Mundania, and probably that Pia and I could not exchange places either. Not until the contest is done.”

  “Just what form would a confinement-to-Mundania contest take?” Dug asked. “I mean, it can hardly go on forever. There must be some limit.”

  “Three days after the challenge is made. The demon E(A/R)TH would seek to hold Nimby that time, and Nimby would have to return to Xanth within that time, or lose.”

  “What would that do to Nimby?”

  “A Demon can’t be physically hurt, but it would prevent him from defending his status among Demons, and that would be a penalty sacrificing what has taken him a thousand years to achieve. The Demon E(A/R)TH would assume his status and become the—the closest analogy would be the leader—of the Demons.”

  “I thought I had this figured out, but maybe not,” Dug said. “How far would the Demon E(A/R)TH go to accomplish this?”

  “We’re not sure. It depends on his judgment of the likelihood of success. If he tries to trap Nimby, and fails, he would lose significant status himself. More than if he just lets Nimby escape without challenge. So he is likely to mask his effort, making it seem like chance mishaps, so that if he fails, there will be no consequence to him. He will play it that way until he discovers a better opportunity to succeed. Then, if assured of success, he will do what he judges necessary to accomplish it. That could be severe.”

  “Just how much power does he have?” Kim asked. “Can he do magic too?”

  “No magic. He uses science. He can’t make people do things, but can affect earth processes, such as the weather.”

  “He can make thunderstorms?”

  “At least.”

  “But a storm shouldn’t stop Nimby from returning to Xanth,” Dug said.

  “That depends on the storm.”

  Kim pursed her lips. “You don’t mean just rain. You mean like hurricanes.”

  “If those are very big storms, yes. And shaking of the ground.”

  “Earthquakes.”

  “Yes. And similar effects. It could get awkward for local residents.”

  “Such things kill local residents,” Dug said.

  “I doubt the Demon E(A/R)TH would care. So it will be better if it doesn’t come to that. And the best way to see that it doesn’t, is to ensure that Nimby can return to Xanth at will, so that there is no point in trying to trap him here.”

  “Got it,” Dug said. “So maybe this Xone interface problem isn’t the Demon E(A/R)TH’s work, but just in case it is, we need to explore our options. Are there other ways to return to Xanth?”

  “Other than through the Grid and Mesh? I think so.”

  Nimby touched her hand. Information flowed from him. “And there are other ways within the Grid,” Chlorine amended. “Those would be easier.”

  “Other ways?” Kim asked.

  “Through the Xanth Xone,” Chlorine said, assimilating Nimby’s plan.

  “But those aren’t real Xanth people,” Kim said. “They’re Mundanes with pretenses.”

  “Not entirely. They can’t use Xanth identities without the assent of the real folk there. There has to be an affinity, or it doesn’t take.”

  “Hoo, boy,” Dug said. “You mean there really is a connection between, say, the Xone Irene and Queen Irene?”

  “A tenuous one. It’s—” Chlorine concentrated, trying to handle a concept that was well within Nimby’s scope but somewhat beyond hers. “Like quantity physicals, the Halloween connection between the two aspics of a dividend photo.”

  Dug angled his head, working on that. “May I?” he asked after a moment, extending his hand toward Nimby.

  Nimby touched his hand.

  “Got it,” Dug said. “Like quantum physics, the ‘spooky’ connection between the two aspects of a divided photon. What happens to one is reflected in the other, instantaneously, though there is no apparent association between them. Even Einstein had a problem with that, because—”

  “Dug,” Kim murmured.

  He smiled. “Okay. The point is, there can be devious connections between two things having a common origin, such as bits of light or Queen Irene. The Xanth Xone folk associate with their Land of Xanth counterparts, but it’s not direct.”

  “So they can’t just say ‘Better half, send help,’ and have it understood,” Kim said.

  “Right,” Dug agreed, for he now had the full import of Nimby’s thought. “But in quantum physics, sometimes you can do on a mass scale what you can’t do in a single instance. If many Xanth Xone equivalents send a message, some may get through.”

  “Like scattershot,” Kim said. “Got it. So what’s the message?”

  “It has to be masked,” Chlorine said. “So as not to be obvious, and thus alert Dearth.”

  “Who?” Kim asked.

  “Sorry. Demon E(A/R)TH, or D. Earth. We don’t know whether he is watching the GigaGrid, but better not chance it. So it has to be something that isn’t obvious, but will be understood in Xanth.”

  “Coded,” Dug agreed. “Seeming innocent, to those who don’t know the background. But an immediate alert, in Xanth.”

  “Okay,” Kim said. “So what’s the message?”

  “To GM: Nimby eats dust,” Chlorine said.

  “To Giant Motors? What do they—” Kim paused. “The Good Magician! I get it. But is that enough?”

  “It contains the problem and the solution,” Chlorine said. “In your vernacular, as we understand it, eating dust is to be in trouble.”

  “Close enough,” Kim agreed. “But what’s the solution?”

  “To fetch magic dust, which carries the magic of Xanth. If some of that can be sent to Nimby, he will recover some of his power, and be able to do what he needs to.”

  “Oh, I see. In Xanth, Nimby is the source of magic, but he’s in Edsel’s Mundane body, so lacks most of his magic. But with the dust, it would be like a little bit of Xanth. An island in Mundania.”

  “Yes. With that, he would be proof against Dearth. For a while. And could continue his exploration without concern.”

  “Got it,” Kim said, echoing Dug’s comment. “Let’s get the message out.” She typed in the address, and made her way to the Xanth Xone, doing it for Chlorine because she was much faster. This is Salmon Ella with a public message, non spam, for all Xanth Xone regs. Please send these four words to your namesakes only: “GM—Nimby eats dust.” She looked up. “Anything else?”

  “Better clarify that it isn’t done via the keyboard,” Dug said.

  “Oh. Yes.” She typed again. This is afk effort.

  “Will they understand?” Chlorine asked anxiously.

  “We’ll have to hope they do,” Kim said. “We can’t clarify it online, because that could alert Dearth, but they’ll be discussing it privately, and a number should catch on and spread the word. Then they’ll go to it with a will. What each wants most is to have a genuine contact with Xanth. They should enjoy making the effort, even if they don’t get through.”

  “How will we know they’re doing it?” Chlorine asked.

  Kim laughed. “No problem there. They’re already doing it. Look.” She turned the screen so that Chlorine and Nimby could see it.

  Mela Merwoman: I sent it. I think I got through.

  Electra: I tried; don’t think so.

  Draco Dragon: We winged monsters are taking off.

  Chlorine: Couldn’t make contact. Will try again. :-)

  “That’s me!” Chlorine said, with a mixed thrill.

  “That’s why she couldn’t get through,” Kim said. “You’re not in Xanth at the moment.”

  “Yes. So she’s honest. What’s that punctuation?”

  “You read it sideways. It’s a face. The colon is the two eyes, the dash is the nose, and the end-parenthesis is the mouth.”

  “Oh, it’s smiling!”

  “Y
es,” Kim said. “They can smile, or frown, or make variant expressions. Some get pretty sophisticated. It’s a way of conveying emotions in lieu of the facial expressions we can’t see. What this means is that they are getting on it, and word is spreading.”

  “But if they’re writing about it, on the screen, won’t that alert Dearth?”

  Kim nodded. “Probably so. But he won’t be able to do anything about it, because there will be too many to catch. He can’t shut down the whole GigaGrid.”

  Nimby touched Chlorine. “Actually he could shut it down,” she said. “Because electrical effects are part of his power. But Nimby thinks he won’t, because he can’t be sure this isn’t just a game similar to others the Xoners play, and there would be quite a reaction if the whole Grid collapsed. Dearth doesn’t like to be obvious, any more than Nimby does; it’s bad Demon form. He prefers to let the ants play out their antics on their own.”

  “The Demons see people as ants?” Kim asked.

  “When they notice them at all,” Chlorine said. “Except for Nimby. When he had to participate as a mortal creature, and win one tear of love or grief, he got to know some of us, and now he accepts us as people in our own right.” She smiled at Nimby, loving him. “But the other Demons would step on us without knowing or caring. We’re just an infestation in their territories.”

  “Well, at least we know where we stand,” Dug said, shrugging. “Now we’ve set the ball rolling, we can get on with our camping trip.”

  Chlorine looked at Nimby, who nodded. “Yes. We can have the fun we planned on, knowing that Dearth won’t be able to interfere.”

  They rode and drove to the nearby mountains, surveying the situation. The mountains were impressive. They would be able to disappear into their green forest and get the feel of Mundane nature. That was part of what Nimby really wanted. They would come out here in the morning with their camping gear, and have days and nights in the wilderness.

  They returned to the motel and relaxed. They watched the Mundane gourd; Nimby paid special attention to the news, learning everything he could about this realm. They finished on a public service channel, which had a nature program about the pollution of the sea.

  “Why do they despoil it?” Chlorine asked. “Xanth is so much nicer.”

  “People are short sighted,” Dug said. “And corporations care for nothing but making more money. But folk are beginning to be aware, and things are starting to be done.”

  Chlorine managed to get through her insulin shot without too much discomfort or messiness. “But this is a pain,” she told Nimby. “I’d rather be rid of it.”

  Nimby looked at her.

  She nodded. “Yes, why don’t you abolish it? When you get your magic, it wouldn’t be hard to get rid of the diabetes, and maybe trim down some of the fat on this torso. As appreciation for letting me use this body. It would be a nice gesture.”

  Nimby nodded.

  Later, when they were alone and in their room, and she stripped away her clothing, she had another thought. “I wish panty-magic worked here in Mundania. It gives a girl confidence. For instance, I could just whip away my skirt, like this, and freak you out, unless you clamped your eyes shut just barely in time. But as it is, I can’t impress you at all.” She went through the motions, and sure enough, he did not freak out. Of course he wouldn’t have, being who he was, but still, she would have liked to make the effort.

  But she did after all make an impression, putting Nimby in mind of the stork, and this time their summons was more competent than before. That was an achievement, because drear Mundania did not enhance it by magic. They had to do it all themselves.

  Next morning they rode out to the mountains, checked in as hikers, and set off with their loads of gear along the Apple-aching Trail. The scenery was beautiful, and every detail was special. It had resemblances to Xanth, except for the lack of magic. They had to use a special salve to keep the biting bugs off; there was no spell to banish them. There were no dragons, griffins, or harpies in the sky, only birds, and small ones at that.

  Late in the day they camped, pitching cozy mini-tents and watching the colored sunset. “I had forgotten how much fun this was,” Kim remarked.

  “I hadn’t,” Dug said. “It was the first time I got you into the sack.”

  “That, too,” she agreed.

  “Why would he want to put you in a bag?” Chlorine asked.

  Dug and Kim laughed. “Mundane men have this quaint notion that women should be kept, so they try to stuff them into sacks,” Kim explained.

  “And for some reason the women don’t like getting stuffed,” Dug agreed. “It’s called the war of the genders.”

  “And we’re winning,” Kim said. “Fortunately the men don’t yet know that.”

  Chlorine shook her head. “Mundania is a strange place.”

  “Well, it’s not Xanth, but it’s bearable on occasion.”

  Kim set up her little computer. “You can use that with no connection?” Chlorine asked, surprised. “I thought that without magic, it wouldn’t work alone.”

  “No magic. It’s a notebook. With a good battery and satellite link, no problem.” Sure enough, her screen lighted and print appeared. She moved through the linkages. “The O-Xone’s back! We can check in again.”

  Chlorine checked in, leaving her message: all is well. Then they closed, as Kim said it wasn’t good to run the computer too long on batteries. But, reassured, they relaxed. Dearth had not caught on, and they were not under siege. It had perhaps been a false alarm. Still, Chlorine was glad they had made the effort of contact through the Xanth Xone. If Dearth was aware, that might be the reason he was letting it go, realizing that he couldn’t entirely block the connection to Xanth.

  In the night it rained. It was a sudden, booming thunderstorm, with sharp winds that brought down branches, and the rain was torrential. The tents were well pitched, but a fluke of drainage softened the ground and let a peg on Dug and Kim’s tent pull free, and their tent collapsed. In the darkness, in the storm, they couldn’t do much about it except huddle under the canvas, and they kept reasonably dry.

  But in the morning they discovered that some baggage had gotten exposed to the rain, and soaked through. The clothing would dry, but the notebook computer had been shorted out and was inoperative. It would have to be taken to a shop for repair before it could be used again.

  The computer had been put in a corner of the tent nearest the washed out peg. The coursing water had made a channel that oriented on that corner with eerie precision. Almost as if nature had intended to nullify the little machine.

  “Dearth,” Chlorine said grimly. Nimby nodded. They had relaxed, foolishly, and now they were in trouble. For Chlorine knew that this was merely the second step, after the O-Xone interruption, of a program of isolation and containment by the Demon E(A/R)TH. He intended to trap Nimby here, and surely had other mechanisms to enforce that.

  Nimby pointed at the sky. There overhead was a shape in rainbow colors, but it was no rainbow. It was a full circle, with two lines bisecting it, forming a cross: ⊕

  “The symbol for Earth,” Chlorine said, “It is the Challenge. Nimby must get out of Mundania within three days of this moment, or he has lost.”

  “And Dearth has already handicapped him by taking out our computer contact,” Dug said. “Demonic timing.”

  “Of course. Now Dearth believes he can win.”

  “I think we are not going to enjoy the next few hours,” Kim said. Those were surely true words.

  10

  ROBOTA

  Edsel really liked the way Pia had warmed to him during the challenges. And all because he had shown some respect for her mind. If only he had realized that that was what she wanted all along, they would never had drifted into marital difficulties.

  “Wait for us!” Breanna called. She and Justin were coming through the now unguarded portal. “How did you ever do it? We just saw you talking, and then you were through.”

  “Sex ap
peal and quantum physics,” Edsel said.

  “We distracted them,” Pia clarified. “The guardians were only clones.”

  “For sure,” Breanna said uncertainly.

  They turned to enter the castle proper, now that they were safely beyond the wall. A woman was coming toward them. “Oh, there’s Wira!”

  The woman paused as they approached. “Hello, Breanna and Justin,” she said. She turned to the others. “And you must be Edsel and Pia. I am Wira, the Good Magician’s daughter in law.”

  “Wira can’t see you,” Breanna said. “But she can hear you.”

  “You’re blind?” Edsel asked before he thought. “I mean, aren’t there healing springs—” He broke off, afraid he was being crude.

  “I am naturally blind,” Wira said. “So can’t be healed. But I am happy here, and Humfrey and his designated wives are nice.”

  “Designated whats?” Pia asked sharply.

  Wira smiled. “The Good Magician has had a long life. He married and lost five and a half wives, then got them all back together. Now they take turns being with him, and the current one, Rose of Roogna, is here this month.”

  “Rose of Roogna?” Edsel asked. “Isn’t that the name of the capital Castle?”

  “Yes. She lived there for a long time, until she married Humfrey. She grows magic roses. She is especially nice.” Wira turned and led the way through the castle.

  A comfortable gray haired woman met them. Her hair was coiffed to resemble a rose flower. “Hello. I am Rose. Let me feed you before you see Humfrey.”

  They sat down to a meal of rose hips and rosé wine, along with rose potatoes and red gravy. There was rose scented bread with rose petal jelly. It wasn’t the most conventional food, but it was good. Rose was a good hostess who seemed genuinely to enjoy their company though they were strangers to her; that was an art not every person had.

  “The next step you two must take alone,” Breanna said. “Justin and I would only be in the way.”

  Then Wira conducted Edsel and Pia up coiling stairs to a dingy cubbyhole. A gnomish man hunched over a monstrous tome.

  Edsel let Pia talk, as this was really her mission.