Xone of Contention

by Anthony, Piers

  Pia looked. She saw the locket hanging by its chain from the neck of a chunky standing man. The man was facing the other way, but the locket was against his broad bare back.

  “I can get it,” Edsel said.

  “No, this is my mission,” Pia said. “I’ll get it.” She appreciated his offer, but suspected that she could more readily charm the man to give it to her.

  Para reached the isle and waddled onto land. Pia stepped out and approached the man. She noticed that his back was flat and covered with small print. “Excuse me,” she said.

  He turned. For a moment she was afraid he was completely naked, but his front side was garishly clothed. “Yes?”

  “I—I’m Pia. I need that magic locket.”

  “Welcome to it. I am Softcover. I was holding it for DeMonica.”

  “Softcover?” she asked.

  “My soft paper back is hard to cover.”

  Now she made the connection. Paperback—hardcover. He was in fact a standing, talking book. Not a cookbook, fortunately; cheap adventure fiction. She smiled fetchingly at him. “Thank you so much, Mister Soft-cover. Will you give it to me?”

  “I am unable to reach it. You must take it from me.”

  So did he want to make her embrace him? Well, if that was the price of it, she could do it. She stepped in close, reached her arms around his arms and chest, caught hold of the chain, and lifted it up and over his head. It was a stretch, and at one point she was pressing fairly firmly against him, but he didn’t move. She brought it down, and had possession. “Thank you,” she said, smiling again.

  “You are welcome.”

  Now she saw that his arms were actually the soft covers of the book, with the hands painted on. He could not move them other than to open and close them. So he had not been deceiving her.

  She turned and stepped back into the boat. “Now let’s get the bleep out of here,” she said briskly.

  The boat splashed into the water and moved rapidly back the way they had come. But another shape was coming toward them. It looked like a winged woman. Whose fantasy was this one?

  “Willow!” Monica called happily.

  “Willow!” Breanna echoed. “What are you doing here?”

  The winged girl came to land in the boat. “Hello Monica, Justin, Breanna. I think I have business with your friends.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Breanna turned to Edsel and Pia. “This is Willow Elf. Sean Mundane’s wife.” She turned back to the girl. “And these are Edsel and Pia, from Mundania.”

  “Yes. The Good Magician told me to find them here. I need the magic locket.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Pia protested. “We need this locket, to stop the Demon CoTwo. The Good Magician knows that.”

  “Yes, of course,” Willow agreed. “But as soon as you finish with it, I must take it to Mundania, to help Nimby.”

  “Nimby’s in trouble?” Breanna asked, alarmed.

  “We fear so. He has very little magic there, because he is using a Mundane body rather than his own, and we think the Demon E(A/R)TH is trying to trap him there. Messages came to several folk, saying Nimby Eats Dust. The Good Magician takes them most seriously. So we must get magic to him soon.”

  “This is serious,” Justin said.

  “Yes. I need to fill the locket with magic dust, so that it will carry the magic to him. Then he will be able to re-connect with you and return to the land of Xanth.”

  “While we return to Mundania,” Pia said, surprised to hear a tinge of regret in her voice. Despite all its complications, she was coming to like it here. For one thing, there was her sixteen year old body. It had been wonderful having it, and using it to impress men. “We’ll give you the locket as soon as we finish with CoTwo.”

  Willow frowned. “It would be better if I borrowed it now, to fill it with magic dust.”

  “You can’t fill it,” Monica said. “It’s bottomless.”

  Willow nodded agreement. “I mean, to put enough dust in it to help Nimby.”

  “But we need it now,” Pia said, distrusting this.

  “I will bring it back to you. I simply need to take it to the Magic Dust Village.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “No more than half a day,” the elf said. “Most of that will be flying time.”

  Pia was pained. “Isn’t there a faster way?”

  Willow considered. “Actually, there is, now that I remember it. Pearl lives near here.”

  “Pearl?”

  “Her talent is summoning magic dust. With her help, I could do it in an hour.”

  “Go to Pearl,” Pia agreed, handing over the magic locket.

  “Thank you. Where can I most readily find you, then?”

  “At the snow mountains.”

  “I will be there.” Willow spread her lovely wings and took off. “This is bad news,” Breanna said. “If Nimby gets trapped in Mundania, all of Xanth will be in trouble.”

  “We shall deal with CoTwo, and then the locket will go to rescue Nimby,” Edsel said. Then his glance strayed. “My!”

  Pia looked. She saw a troupe of shapely nymphs dancing across the surface of the water. “Whose horror is that?”

  “Mine,” Edsel said. “Only it’s no horror. I’ve always dreamed of going to a show like that.”

  Pia eyed the figures disapprovingly. They had very well fleshed legs and very short skirts. There were five of them, with hair matching skirts: blue, red, green, yellow, and black. “This is going to freak you out?”

  “For sure,” Breanna said. “When they get close and do a high kick, so as to show their pretty colored—”

  “I get it. So is there another horror to collide with them?”

  “I fear so,” Justin said. “Over there.”

  Pia looked the way he indicated. Her blood tried to curdle. It was a formless hump that sent a dreadful chill through her.

  “What is it?” Breanna asked.

  “It’s my personal monster,” Pia said. “The thing I want least to encounter.”

  “What is that?” Justin asked.

  “I don’t know. Just that I’ve got to get away from it.”

  “How can you be afraid of something you don’t know?” Monica asked.

  “I think I’m afraid of it because it’s unknown,” Pia said. “It’s something I simply can’t face.”

  “Well, we’ll crash it into the dancing nymphs,” Breanna said. “But you’ll both have to summon them, so they’ll collide where we were.”

  “Glad to,” Edsel said. “Come, nymphs.”

  Pia opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. She just couldn’t summon that unknown horror.

  “Hey, we have to get them aligned,” Breanna said. “Bring the hump! Only you can do it.”

  “I can’t,” Pia moaned. “I just can’t.”

  “Then we have a problem,” Breanna said. “The nymphs are upon us. Para, dodge!”

  The boat dodged to the side, but couldn’t escape the nymphs. They intercepted it and spilled onto the seats, going for Edsel. One of them tumbled head under skirt into Pia, giving her a phenomenal flash of green panties. Of course that didn’t freak her out, because she was female, and because her main attention was taken by the more distant lump pursuing her. But she knew Edsel was another matter.

  The nymph rolled on into Pia—and through her. It was an illusion. But those bright, full panties would take men out regardless.

  “Justin,” Breanna said urgently, “maybe you’d better—before one of them flashes you.”

  “I didn’t want to use this, but I see I must,” Justin said with regret. He drew from a pocket something that to Pia’s peripheral vision looked like a big letter D. He flipped it at the cluster of nymphs.

  There was an explosion. Pieces of nymph and skirt and panty flew out in every direction, dissipating, but Pia didn’t feel anything physical.

  “Hey, what happened?” Edsel asked, blinking.

  “Justin destroyed them with his dee-tonate,”
Breanna said. “It blows things up. He set it for illusions, so it blew up only the illusion.”

  “But I was just about to see them do the high kick,” Edsel complained.

  “And it would have freaked you out five-fold,” Breanna retorted. “A one panty freakout is over as soon as eye contact is broken, but when there are several, the effect is geometrical. You’d have been out for days, and we can’t afford that.”

  “Oh.” Edsel looked both disappointed and sheepish.

  “But Pia’s spook is still coming,” Justin said. “And we can’t stop it.”

  “We’ll just have to run for it,” Breanna said. “Maybe it can’t go beyond the edge of the Fanta Sea. Go, Para!”

  The boat lurched forward. They reached the bank, and the boat heaved out of the water and across the land. Were they safe?

  Pia faced back, watching, because she had no choice. For a while they gained on the horror, but then it floated off the water and over the land. It was still coming.

  “Well, we’ll figure out something,” Breanna said uncertainly. “Keep going, Para. To the snow mountains.”

  The boat ran along at an excellent clip. Slowly the pursuing apparition lost ground, and finally disappeared behind a turn in the forest. Pia’s gaze was freed. But she knew the thing had not given up. It would pursue her until it caught her.

  “The locket!” Breanna exclaimed. “You can put it in the locket.”

  “An illusion?” Edsel asked.

  “For sure. That locket takes in anything you ask it to, and won’t let it out until you say so.”

  “But Willow has the locket,” Pia reminded her.

  “Oh, bleep! I forgot. Well, we’ll just have to stay out of its way until we get the locket back.”

  Para made excellent time, and before long they were rising through the foothills of the mountains. Pia could tell, because the hills were shaped like giant feet.

  But this also slowed the forward progress of the boat. The pursuing hump was floating, and had no problem with climbing; it came back into sight, slowly closing in.

  “It’s going to catch us,” Breanna said. “Before we get there, and before Willow brings back the locket.”

  “What can I do?” Pia wailed.

  “There is only one way to deal with inescapable terror.”

  Justin said. “That is to face it and conquer it.”

  “But I can’t face it!”

  “Then it will destroy you,” he said regretfully.

  “But it’s not physical,” Edsel said. “It’s just emotion.”

  “Emotion suffices,” Justin said. “It can wipe out the mind. It is called insanity.”

  “So if she flees it, and it catches her, she’s doomed,” Edsel said. “But if she faces it down, maybe she’ll make it.”

  “That is the situation.”

  “Maybe not,” Breanna said. “Has anyone ever tried to intercept one of those things? I mean, someone it’s not aimed at?”

  “I do not believe so. But—”

  Breanna jumped out of the boat, caught her balance, and stood in the path of the spook. “Come on, spook,” she cried. “You’ve got to get through me first.”

  The thing loomed up—and passed right through the girl. Breanna couldn’t touch it.

  Pia knew what she had to do. “If I can’t escape it, I might as well face it,” she said. She got out of the boat and stood beside a small pond. This was not courage, but desperation; she was quaking.

  The hump sailed toward her, followed by Breanna. But the girl stopped when she saw Pia. This was something that only Pia could tackle.

  Pia hoped she looked brave from a distance. It certainly wasn’t the case up close. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and she knew her eyes were dilated. The only thing that stopped her from turning to run away was her certainty that it would catch her and be even worse than if she faced it.

  The thing loomed close. It slowed, orienting on her. It began to assume the form of a person, or rather, a horrible parody of a person. “Who are you?” she demanded timorously.

  The shape continued to clarify. It became female, with a shapely body, a heart shaped face, green eyes, and long dark brown hair. It looked weirdly familiar. In fact—

  She looked at its reflection in the pond. Beside it was her own reflection. The two figures were the same.

  She was terrified of herself?

  She was indeed terrified, and it was her image. But behind the fever of her fear, a certain animal cunning lurked. Were things really as they seemed? Or was this apparition fooling her in a way she did not understand?

  She peered at the thing, and saw that its face was colored. Did that mean something? It was black. What did that mean? Red might be rage, green might be jealousy, blue might be sick, yellow might be fear, but what was black? She was sure it had nothing to do with race; Breanna of the Black Wave had abolished any such concern. It had to be an emotion—she felt it almost overwhelming her—but which one?

  “What are you?” she asked.

  The figure moved closer. Its face began to show the highlights of a skull. But it wasn’t death, just a comparison to death. Something she’d rather die than do. Or, rather, admit.

  “What awful secret do you hide?” she asked desperately.

  The figure reached for her. She knew it would blast her mind if she didn’t counter it. But how could she do that if she didn’t know what it was?

  Desperately she reviewed her concerns, frustrations, and fears. She couldn’t think what it was. But there was something much worse than a cookbook. So bad that she couldn’t recognize it even when it stared her in the face. What was this black emotion?

  Then she did something extremely nervy, for her. She reached out and touched the thing’s hand.

  Suddenly the emotion clarified. It was Guilt! She was so horribly guilt-ridden for something that she couldn’t even face it. But now she had to, lest she be destroyed by it. What was her guilt?

  Then, slowly and painfully, it came to her. Her guilt was about Edsel! And his friend Dug. For she had been Dug’s girlfriend, and tired of him, supposing Edsel to be more entertaining. So she had flashed a bit of this at Edsel—the figure’s blouse faded to show breast and cleavage—and a bit of that—it showed high thigh. And in a moment she had captured his fancy. Then all that remained was to engineer an exchange. It had been almost too easy. So Dug was without girlfriend, and Edsel was with her. And Pia was satisfied.

  But it had been dirty. Dug was a fine man, eminently undeserving of such treatment. Oh, he had found another girlfriend, in Kim, and was happy now. But that did not ameliorate Pia’s guilt for the way she had treated him. She should have been up-front, told him how she felt, assured him that it was no fault in him, and wished him well. Instead she had covertly dumped him.

  And now, long after she thought she had buried it forever, that guilt had returned to haunt her. To overcome her. The girls of Xanth thought that there was shame in accidentally showing their panties. They didn’t know what real shame was!

  The irony was that there was nothing she could do about it. Dug was better off with Kim than he had been with Pia—and Pia was worse off with Edsel than she had been with Dug. She had been doing neither Dug nor Edsel any favor. She wasn’t worth their company. She would be doing them both a favor by getting the bleep out of the picture.

  “You win,” she said to the awful figure. Then she turned and leaped into the pond.

  In half a moment she realized that even in this she had messed up. First, she couldn’t drown herself, because she was too good a swimmer and the pond was too small. Second, the water was only knee deep. She had gotten soaked for nothing.

  Para was there, floating to her rescue. But Pia waved him away. “I guess I really can’t escape,” she said. “I have to deal with it.” The odd thing was that she was feeling better now, despite her bedraggled condition. She felt better than ever, physically, and more confident emotionally.

  She saw the others
in the boat. Breanna dipped her hand in the water, and opened her mouth, but Justin cautioned her, and she was silent. They were leaving Pia alone to settle this herself, in whatever way she could.

  She stood and strode out of the pool toward the figure. “I know what I have to do,” she said. “I have to stop burying, stop running, and handle my guilt. I have to learn from bad experience. I can’t change the past, but I can change the present and the future. I can stop being so stupidly shallow and start being a better woman. I can make sure that I never wrong a good man again.” She turned to look at Edsel. “And I can bleeping well do everything I can to make our marriage work.”

  She turned back to face the spook. “I can do all the things I wouldn’t do before. I can learn to cook, I can do the laundry, I can—” She paused with dawning surmise. “I can have children, and be a mother. I can do the whole family bit. So that I have nothing to feel guilty about any more.”

  Then she walked right into the figure. “So do your worst, spook. I’m ashamed of how I was, but I don’t have be that any more.”

  But the figure was gone. It had dissipated as she touched it. She had banished the spook.

  Para came up to her, carrying the others. “That pool,” Breanna said. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Not deep enough,” Pia said. “I’m a mess.”

  “It’s a healing spring,” Breanna said. “We didn’t realize, before.”

  “A healing spring?” Pia asked blankly.

  “Whatever injuries or whatever you have, it makes them better.”

  “The only problem I have are physical and emotional,” Pia said. “My diabetes and my attitude. And I’m fixing the second.”

  “I think it fixed the first,” Breanna said. “How are you feeling now, physically?”

  “Great! Never better. But diabetes isn’t something a mere splash in a pool can fix.”

  “Why not?”

  Pia considered. “Well, I don’t know. But if I discover that I can get along without insulin shots, then I’ll know.” She turned to Edsel. “Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can. Ed, the marriage is on.”

  “On?” he asked, looking as if he expected this to be a joke.