Xone of Contention

by Anthony, Piers

  “So you’re not really senile,” Grey said. “Just soulless.”

  “That is correct. I pretend senility in order to avoid onerous tasks.”

  “Well, demonstrate your talent, and we will depart and never see you again,” Robota said.

  “Will a small storm do?”

  “Certainly.” She smiled engagingly.

  Aeolus concentrated on the center of the room. In a moment a cloud formed. It thickened and swirled. Then a little bolt of lightning shot out, and there was a crack of thunder. A small rain shower followed.

  “Wonderful!” Robota exclaimed, clapping her little hands. “Great demonstration.”

  The storm dissipated. The Storm King walked back to the soular cell.

  Aeolus made a clutching motion at himself. Something sparkly lifted from his body. He crammed it into the box and pushed down the lid. He had put away his soul.

  He turned toward them. “Now you will go, and be silent,” he said.

  “Yes,” Grey agreed.

  They left the chamber with the king, so this time Grey did not need to nullify the door. Then the Aeolus bid them farewell, and they walked out of the palace. “You got what you need?” Grey asked Robota.

  “Yes. Now I understand the secret of weather magic. My master will be able to duplicate it.”

  “Then walk with me, and do not argue.”

  “Argue?”

  “When I do something surprising.”

  Perplexed, Robota agreed.

  They walked north, out of the North Village. But the moment they were out of sight of it, Grey picked her up and stepped off the path into the brush. “Revert to golem size,” he whispered.

  She did, and he put her in his pocket. Then he forged on through the brush at right angles to the path. There were needle cactuses, thornberries, and tangle trees in that trackless jungle, but he nullified them as he passed through.

  “What is he doing?” Pia asked.

  “This is a mystery to us,” Tristan said. “He is supposed to bring them right home.”

  Grey circled the North Village, bearing west and then south. There he found a small little-used path, and followed it farther south.

  As the day grew late, he found a thick thicket between two thin thinets, and used his nullifying magic to penetrate to the center, where he was well protected and effectively invisible.

  “Now what is this all about?” Robota inquired in his ear. “You didn’t need to go to this much trouble to get me alone, you know.”

  Grey surely smiled. “The Storm King is without a conscience.”

  “He seemed nice enough to me.”

  “The conscience resides with the soul. The soulless have no decent limits, as with the demons or the animated inanimate.”

  “Now wait a moment! I’m animated inanimate.”

  “And so you have no conscience. Fortunately you have not yet discovered how dastardly you could be, if you thought of it. I hope you will continue to act in a decent manner.”

  “You mean I can’t seduce you?” she asked, disappointed.

  “That’s right. A woman of conscience would not try to seduce a married man.”

  “But why not?”

  “That comes under the heading of conscience. To a person of conscience, that which is feasible is not necessarily that which is appropriate.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Precisely. But if you do well, one day you may became real, and have a soul, as Grundy Golem does. You will want to be prepared for its limitations.”

  Robota considered. “You’re right. I do want to become real. So I will study conscience, now that I have studied weather. But you will have to help me, because my master never said anything about it.”

  “Com Pewter is animated inanimate, too, and so without conscience. Fortunately there are some limitations established in his programming. What about Tristan?”

  “He’s funny. He won’t cheat at cards even when it seems he could, and he doesn’t do anything illicit even when he’s away from our master’s control.”

  “Tristan has a conscience. In fact, he has one of the finest consciences of his kind, and is a fine model to emulate.”

  “You mean I should act like him?”

  “Yes, with due allowance for your gender.”

  She sighed. “This will be horribly restrictive.”

  “It’s worth it.”

  “So why did you bring me here, since it wasn’t for illicit purpose?”

  “The Storm King wants to hold on to power as long as he possibly can. He doesn’t know he is going to die soon, making his retention of the kingship moot. We discovered a secret of his. He will seek to eliminate us.”

  “But we promised to keep that secret fifty years.”

  “He judges us by himself. He expects us to break that promise. So he will seek to eliminate us before we do so.”

  “How can he do that?”

  “By arranging to have us ambushed and killed on our way home.”

  “But he can’t kill me; I’m not alive.”

  “He doesn’t know that. In any event, he could have you taken apart and scattered.”

  Robota nodded. “That would do it. Especially here in the past, where my master can’t recover the pieces.”

  “So we must hide from him. We arrived at the North Village from the north, and departed it to the north. He will assume that we live somewhere north, and will send his scouts out to intercept us. They will hardly think to look well away from the paths amidst the dangerous jungle.”

  “And when they don’t find us to the north, they will spread their net wider.”

  “Yes. But they will have little chance to find us if we are careful, and if we stay well ahead of them. So we must postpone our departure from Xanth until the search dies out.”

  “But won’t that mess up our return to our own time?”

  “No, we’ll re-enter Xanth just when we should. This merely prolongs our stay here.”

  “What of the observers?”

  “They will have to fast-forward by most of this. I regret inconveniencing them, but I had not anticipated dealing with a soulless king.”

  “What’s for supper?”

  Grey looked around. “I didn’t think of grabbing any food before coming here.”

  “I can go out and find something for you; I’m small enough and hard enough to handle this thicket.”

  “Why should you bother? You don’t feel hunger yourself.”

  She shrugged. “Isn’t that what a person of conscience would do?”

  “Yes. But—”

  “So I’m learning.” She climbed down his shirt, dropped to the ground, and went out in search of food.

  “This is getting interesting,” Pia said, opening her eyes. “Let’s take a break, then fast-forward.”

  “Agreed,” Edsel said. For though the time travelers had spent a day in Xanth, the observers had spent much less time. In fact, their times were not synchronized; the two in the present could go through any amount of past adventure as fast as they wanted, by skipping ahead. But they did not want to skip too much, too freely, lest they miss something vital and be unable to backtrack to see it. They missed nothing during their breaks, but could miss everything during an ill-advised fast-forward.

  “Robota spoke of seducing Grey,” Pia said. “He talked her out of it. But is it physically possible? I mean, she’s a golem made from metal. She doesn’t even have a—a place.”

  “It is physically possible,” Tristan said. “For two reasons. First, she can change her own reality, to an extent, so can form a place. Second, metal is no necessary bar to such activity, just as the fact that my girlfriend Terian is a literal mouse is no bar when we meet physically. Magic makes us compatible. It’s a variation of the accommodation spells the elves and imps use when they wish to associate with large folk on an equal basis. Even all-metal folk, like the brassies, can be remarkably soft when they wish to be, so Robota has that ability too.”

&nb
sp; Pia seemed somewhat taken aback. “Golems have more potential than I thought,” she said.

  That surprise was true for Edsel too. Even seemingly simple forms of magic were turning out to have intriguing aspects.

  In due course they resumed the observation. Edsel was finding it increasingly easy to identify with Grey Murphy, who seemed like a fine person. He suspected that Pia was finding the same with Robota, who had arranged to look like her in her elfin form, and in her golem form too. That was a considerable compliment, especially because it seemed to be unconscious.

  Grey and Robota continued south to the Magic Dust Village. This settlement, Justin explained, had lost most of its men to the call of the nearby Siren. A few men had been grabbed by a tangle tree near the path, and rescued in injured condition. But the injured ones kept trying to follow the Siren’s song. The village was run by a tough female troll named Trolla.

  “A troll,” Pia said. “But aren’t you a troll, Tristan?”

  “Yes. We are not all bad, just as full humans are not.”

  “For sure,” Breanna agreed. “No species is all bad, not even zombies.”

  Grey and Robota joined the villagers, she now in her natural golem form, because the king’s men would be looking for an elf. When the Siren sang again, Grey was unmoved.

  “How do you resist the Siren’s call?” Trolla asked.

  “It’s my talent,” Grey said. “I can nullify—”

  “He has selective deafness,” Robota interrupted. “He hears only what he wants to hear.”

  Grey, realizing that he had almost made a careless mistake, shut up. Edsel was attuned to his mind, and could follow his thoughts with increasing facility.

  “My word,” an old wife of the Village said. “I’d swear my husband and all my children had that talent.”

  Grey considered, and concluded that he would not be changing history if he spared the men from the tree. He went to the tree alone at night and touched its trunk. When it tried to grab him, he nulled it. “You will never again molest a man following the Siren’s Song,” he informed it. “Otherwise I will do this.” He nulled much of the trunk for a moment.

  The tree got the message. It left the men alone. But it remained dangerous to women. Fortunately they had the sense not to go near it. They assumed that the Siren had made a deal with the tangler, so that she could capture more males.

  Grey and Robota remained a few days at the Magic Dust Village, but Grey became increasingly uncomfortable, because there were so many women there who missed the company of men. They were becoming rather obvious about their attraction to him, and some were quite alluring.

  Lovely music and singing filtered though the forest. “I think we should go see just what is happening with the siren,” Grey said.

  “You are succumbing to her song!” Trolla said, alarmed.

  He smiled. “No. I can shut it out. But as long as the Siren remains, there is a danger to the village. Maybe I can talk her out of singing.”

  “That would be nice,” Trolla said. “Better yet, we would like to have our men back.”

  “For sure,” Robota agreed. The others laughed when Pia reported that.

  They followed the path through the jungle, Robota sitting on Grey’s shoulder and holding on to his ear. The motion of his body caused her to lean outward and inward, her bosom colliding with his ear every so often. “That’s not accidental,” Pia murmured professionally. “She’s keeping her options open.”

  “Keeping her what’s open?” Edsel asked.

  The others smiled. They were getting used to him.

  “Of course we can’t really change the Siren,” Grey told Robota. “That would alter history. But we can talk to her, and perhaps make things easier for the Magic Dust Villagers.”

  “They seem like nice folk,” she agreed. “I could study conscience with them.”

  “You could indeed. They are doing a difficult job, dispersing the magic dust so that it doesn’t pile up too thickly and distort the magic of Xanth. All types of people are working together in harmony, all motivated by their sense of duty. An excellent model.”

  It was a good path. It led them toward the sound of the singing, to the shore of a small lake. There was a island in the middle. On the island’s tiny beach was a stool, and on the stool sat a lovely female figure, facing away from them, playing a dulcimer.

  There was a bleat, and suddenly a sheep-like animal charged toward them. “That’s a battering ram,” Grey said. “Dodge it.”

  “But you could nullify it.”

  “I believe it has an encounter with Bink, not long hence. I don’t want to change that encounter, lest—”

  “Lest history change,” she concluded. “Now I understand.”

  The ram came at them. Grey jumped nimbly to the side, and it ran right on by. Before it could brake and turn, it collided with a pineapple tree. A pineapple dropped, detonating under the ram’s tail, and shrapnel flew out. The ram, reasonably battered, ran on.

  The music continued. “It has a pretty melody,” Robota said. “But I don’t find it compelling.”

  “I do,” Grey said. “But I can nullify its magical component. That is the Siren.”

  They found a path across the water, and followed it toward the figure. The path faded behind them, leaving open water; it was one-way.

  The Siren heard them and turned, ceasing her playing and singing. She had hair like flowing sunshine, and a tail like flowing water. Her bare breasts were spectacular.

  “She can summon me anytime,” Edsel breathed.

  “Well, you’re an idiot male,” Pia retorted. She pursed her lips. “But she does have formidable architecture.”

  “The Siren is seventeen years old at this stage,” Justin remarked. “She has a teenaged figure.”

  “That’s the best kind,” Breanna said.

  “Indubitably.”

  “You must be the Siren,” Grey said.

  “Why so I am, handsome man,” the mermaid said, inhaling. “Are you going to stay a while?”

  “I, ah, already have company,” he said, indicating Robota, who remained on his shoulder.

  “I’m sure the golem girl can share you. What can she offer that I can’t?”

  “Legs,” Robota said, flexing hers.

  “Really?” The siren drew her tail from the water, and it split and became a fine bare pair of legs. She stood, setting her dulcimer on the stool.

  “We came only to talk,” Grey said quickly. “You seem to have been causing some mischief in the neighborhood.”

  “But all I do is divert myself by singing and playing my dulcimer,” the siren protested. “It gets so lonely.”

  “Couldn’t you go elsewhere to divert yourself?”

  “No. Our parents left me and my sister the Gorgon here, making us promise never to leave the lake. So I remain, hoping for company. But it never remains.”

  “Gorgon?” Robota asked.

  “That’s her name. She’s lovely, like me, and has almost as sweet a disposition. But we got tired of each other’s company—I mean, we’re both female—so she went to another island nearby. The trouble is, though I play fair and let men go on to meet her too, she never sends them back. It’s generating some stress between us.”

  “You don’t know why?” Grey asked.

  “Well, I never thought she was selfish, but I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “They are truly innocent,” Justin explained. “When they reached the age of—of—”

  “Stork interest,” Breanna supplied.

  “Um, just so. At that stage their magic talents also matured, and they could no longer be safely kept at home. So they were deposited on the islands of the lake, to fend for themselves. Which, unfortunately, they were more than capable of doing, despite their innocence.”

  “So then you lure more men, with your music,” Grey said. “And the same thing happens.”

  She pouted prettily. “Yes. I would like to marry and settle down, but I have to let them m
eet my sister, because we are supposed to share evenly, and then I lose them.”

  “Well, I may not be an authority, because I’m from Mundania,” Grey said carefully. “But I think there are better ways to meet men. Perhaps I can persuade your sister to send one back to you.”

  She clapped her hands. “That would be wonderful! I have so much to give, if only there was someone to take.”

  “She’s not fooling,” Edsel commented. “That bare figure—”

  “We know,” Pia snapped. She tended to get snappish when encountering women with fuller bosoms than hers.

  Grey and Robota followed the one way path on to the Gorgon’s island. “What are they up to?” Pia asked. “That creature’s dangerous.”

  “I believe he wants to persuade the Gorgon not to turn every man to stone,” Tristan said. “But this is chancy, because the Gorgon significantly affects Xanth history, especially after she encounters Magician Humfrey, and this must not be changed.”

  “Grey knows that,” Breanna said. “He lives at the Good Magician’s castle. He knows the Gorgon personally.”

  “Then she’ll recognize him!” Breanna protested.

  “No, dear,” Justin said. “She does not know him at this time. Later she may remember him, but that’s much closer to the present, and shouldn’t have much effect. Still, I confess I am not at ease about this encounter.”

  “Ssst!” Pia said. “The golem’s on it.”

  “Is this wise?” Robota asked as they walked. “The Gorgon will marry the Good Magician, after he makes her deadly face invisible.”

  “I won’t interfere with that, of course,” he said. “I merely want to unstone some of the men from the Magic Dust Village, so they can return there to work and comfort their women.”

  “The Siren’s song will just lure them away again.”

  “True. But at least they will have some time with their families, making things better without changing history significantly.”

  “I think you’re risking paradox,” Robota said.

  “No I think it will be all right.”

  “In fact, I think you have been foolishly smitten by the lovely innocence of the Siren, and want to see the Gorgon in her teenage youth.”