By evening she saw the inn, and not only did the thread lead to it, it went inside. Could the ghost woman be part of her route? Ordinarily such a prospect would disturb her, but now she hoped for it.
She entered the inn. The innkeeper met her at the door. "Sorry, we"re full," he said hollowly, fidgeting and looking away.
Cube glanced at Diamond. Her tail was low.
"What about the room with the ghost?" she demanded.
The man looked as if he had swallowed a bad prune. "Don"t blab about that!"
"I won"t," Cube promised truthfully.
The man became cunning, now that he had secured his secret. "What do you have in trade?"
"I can work for my board," Cube said. She was tired, but she knew inns were not free. "For me and the dog."
"Go to the kitchen. Do what the cook says. She"ll show you the room when you"re done."
"Done," Cube agreed. It was a fair bargain, considering.
The cook was a cheerful fat woman with a direct gaze and no fidgeting. "Good to have help. Here"s food for you and the dog. Then you"ll have to wash the pots and sweep the floor."
The food was good, the pots were greasy, and the floor was filthy. Cube did the best job she could, though she was really tired by the time it all was done. Diamond sniffed out a rat and growled it out of the kitchen, pleasing the cook. Then the cook showed her to the room. "You know it"s haunted? The ghost won"t hurt you, but she"s sort of spooky."
"I know," Cube said. "We"ll get along." She opened the door, and she and Diamond stepped into the room.
Chapter 8: Exchange.
The ghost stood in the center of the chamber, facing them. She possessed unearthly beauty of face and form, and her dress was elegant. But tears streaked her cla.s.sic face.
Cube suffered half a welter of emotions. She didn"t know what to do. But Diamond didn"t hesitate; she went up to the ghost.
"A dohg," the ghost said, surprised. She reached down to pat Diamond. Her delicate hand pa.s.sed through the dog"s head, but Diamond wagged her tail.
"Her name is Diamond," Cube said, seizing this opening. "Mine is Cube. We"d like to stay the night here, if it"s all right with you."
"I"m so lohnely," the ghost said. Then she focused a little better. "Yes, if you wish. I have no escape. I am Silhouette."
Cube walked carefully around the ghost and sat on the bed. She was tired and wanted to clean up and sleep, but this ghost woman fascinated her. Certainly she was well named; her figure was so shapely as to make any man who even heard about it drool. "Silhouette, are you alive or dead?"
"My body is alive, for now. My soul is dead."
"I don"t understand."
"It is a long and dreary story. I took poison, but am not yet dead. I"m in a coma, and my soul is free to roam. But I have no way to leave this room, for this is where my body lies in my world."
"Your world?"
"I believe the last visitor called it Mundania. I gather this is an imaginary fantasy world, while my own is reality. So my spirit is in my imagination."
"This is Xanth," Cube said. "It is a magic place, and next to it is Mundania, where there is little or no magic. I am a traveler in Xanth."
"I think I"d like to travel in a fantasy realm," Silhouette said. "It would be so much nicer than what I know."
"You wouldn"t want to exchange places with me," Cube said.
"Oh, but I would, if you can range freely amidst magic."
"But you"re beautiful! How can you be unhappy?"
"How can I be otherwise? Appearance is nothing; my beauty has merely sealed my fate. You are far better off."
"Look at me! I am as plain as you are beautiful. My most ardent desire is to be beautiful."
"But you are free! That is what counts."
"How can I be free in a body like this? I can"t get a man to look at me, let alone romance me. But if I were beautiful, I could be happy."
Silhouette gazed at her. "I wish we could exchange, so that you could discover what my life is like, and I could have the pleasure of yours."
"I wish so too! But--" Cube broke off, noticing something. The thread had led her to this inn and this room, but it hardly quit there. It went to Silhouette and stopped. It did not lead out of the room.
"You look as if you see a ghost," Silhouette said with sad humor. "Are you all right?"
"I think something--there is something--you may find this hard to believe, but--but maybe we are meant to exchange."
The woman shook her head. "I spoke foolishly. Even were it possible, I wouldn"t care to do that to you. I am dying, and even if by some mischance I survive this siege, my life is not worth living. You would be locked in misery."
But the idea had taken hold. "Maybe. Silhouette, can you keep a secret?"
"I can do nothing else. It is the hard truths that should be revealed that are beyond me."
"I mean, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?"
Silhouette met her gaze. She did not fidget, and her voice was firm. "Of course."
"I want to explain my business, so you can understand why I think we may need to exchange, at least for a while. Maybe just our souls. But you need to know what you would be getting into."
Silhouette laughed. "WhatI would be getting into! If you took my ident.i.ty, you would be getting into h.e.l.l!"
Still no sign of lying. She meant it. "h.e.l.l?"
"It is mostly of my own making, I confess. I simply lack the gumption to do what I know needs doing."
Something electric ran through Cube. "Gumption?"
"I am not a strong person. Until two years ago I never needed to be strong. My beauty and wealth safeguarded me, and so did my strong father. But when my father died, the vultures closed in. My aunt, my accountant, my boyfriend--"
"Vultures?"
"Oh, yes! They are feeding on my flesh and picking my bones, and I can"t stand it, but neither can I stand up to them. So all I can do is escape by dying."
"But if you had--gumption--you could deal with them?"
Silhouette nodded. "Yes, I know exactly what is needed, if I just had the nerve to do it. But I don"t, and they know it."
This aspect of Cube"s mission was taking shape. "Then let me tell you my story, and you tell me yours, and we"ll see."
"We"ll see," Silhouette agreed.
They talked for two hours. Cube told of her secret mission, and the thread she followed, and how it led to Silhouette, even when she walked around the room. Then Silhouette told her of the horror of her own existence, and Cube realized that she had not been exaggerating. A beautiful woman could indeed be miserable.
But there were other aspects to consider. "You can"t just walk around Xanth on your own," Cube said, "without knowing anything about it. There are many dangers we natives don"t even think about; we just avoid them. You will need guidance and protection."
"Will your dog accompany me? She"s a nice black Labrador, a good breed."
"I think so. But she"s Mundane too; maybe she"s staying with me so she won"t get in more trouble in Xanth. I was thinking of more formidable a.s.sistance."
Silhouette shrugged. "Considering that I hardly care whether I live or die, anything should be sufficient."
"But you"ll be living or dying in my body," Cube said. "I don"t want anything bad to happen to it."
"Oh, of course. I apologize; I wasn"t thinking. I"ve never been very good at thinking."
"Who told you that?"
"My domineering aunt, who runs our household since my father"s death. She is surely correct."
Cube had not noticed any problem with Silhouette"s mind, but saw that her self-esteem was even lower than Cube"s own, if for a rather different reason. So she didn"t argue the case. "I was thinking of a demoness."
Silhouette smiled. "You did mention something of the sort. You said this is a magic land."
She didn"t truly believe. "Observe." Cube put her hand in the pouch. "Metria."
The demoness slid out. She looked at Silhouette, who stepped back nervously. "Well now! You"re the prettiest ghost I"ve seen."
"And you are the most alluring demoness I have encountered," Silhouette said faintly. "I hope you"re not going to do anything awful to me."
"The ghost is Silhouette Mundane," Cube said. "The demoness is D. Metria. Now you have been introduced."
"We have," Metria agreed, a.s.suming the form of the ghost. "So why did you haul me out?"
"I think Silhouette and I are going to exchange places for a while. That is, my soul will go with her body, and her soul will be with mine. She would like to explore Xanth, but won"t know much about it. I want you to stay with her, invisibly, and protect her from mischief."
The demoness considered. "The thread is sending you to Mundania?"
"It seems to being doing that, yes. It leads directly to Silhouette."
"Remember, there"s no magic there. I"ve been there; you wouldn"t like it. I remember when Willow Elf got together with Sean Mundane. She thought love would be enough, but she was isolated in a realm without magic. She didn"t even speak their language. She got depressed. They finally had to move back to Xanth. Sean loved her, and of course Xanth is so much better than Mundania anyway, so it worked out. But you could get stuck there with no way to return."
"If the thread sends me there, I"ll go there," Cube said. "When it brings me back, I"ll return."
"If you return. If anything happens--if you can"t make the rendezvous--"
"I just have to trust the thread. So I can accomplish the mission."
"To fulfill the Quest," Metria agreed. "You"ve got nerve, all right. Very well, I"ll do it."
"One other thing," Cube said to the ghost. "Suppose I do something in your world? To change it? What will be the consequence?"
Silhouette made a wry smile. "Since just about everything in my world is bad, what harm can you do? I wouldn"t mind if you entirely destroyed it."
"You"re sure?"
"Oh, yes! a.s.suming that we exchange for a day or so, then return, my main objective will be to find a more effective way to kill myself. My father had a drawer full of weapons; I should be able to find one there to do the job. Obviously pills aren"t sufficient, but perhaps a knife would be."
"This is one weird att.i.tude," Metria said.
"She means it," Cube said. "You can talk to her while I"m gone. It should appeal to your demonic sense of humor."
"It should," the demoness agreed.
"Are we set?" Cube asked Silhouette.
"I believe so, a.s.suming this works."
"If it works, just walking through each other should do it. And we should be able to exchange back the same way. Shall we make a date for exactly one day hence?"
The ghost looked at her watch. "Midnight. That seems appropriate. Yes, I will be here then."
Cube petted Diamond. "I"ll be leaving you for a day, I think. But I hope you will help Silhouette while I"m gone."
The dog wagged her tail.
Then Cube, not nearly as confident as she pretended, nerved herself and approached the ghost. She walked through the form-- And found herself lying on a bed, woozy. A woman was leaning over her. "You"re waking!"
"Ungh," she agreed, realizing as she spoke that it was a different language. Fortunately this body understood it, just as the ghost in Xanth had understood the Xanth human language. She recognized the woman as a hired nurse; Mundania had such things.
"We were afraid we had lost you. The stomach pump and counter-medication helped, but you were still fading until two hours ago. Then you began a remarkable recovery. The doctors can"t explain it."
"I have unfinished business," Cube said through Silhouette"s mouth. That was a serious understatement. She intended to turn Silhouette"s world upside down, and make it worth enduring. The worst she could do was fail.
"We must get you up and about, for the circulation, and some food in you. You are not out of the woods yet."