They came to a changed scene. It was not exactly a wall, but it wasn"t forest either. The thread led right through it.
Then she remembered the Comic Strips: this must be one. She gazed at it for half a while. It didn"t look bad. Why were people so wary of these Strips? So they had egregious puns; that wasn"t like death or dismemberment. She could handle puns. This seemed to be a perfectly pleasant small valley with flowers and browsing deer beside a trickling streamlet. Except that at its near fringe was a row of p.r.i.c.kly plants she knew better than to touch. Fortunately there was an avenue through them, between two tall trees.
Maybe this was a punless section of the Strip. Or maybe it took time for the puns to collect, like biting flies, when someone stepped into it.
"Let"s go," she said to the dog. "We"ll just go straight across, and it should be all right."
Diamond wagged her tail.
They stepped between the trees. Cube felt something touch her body, causing her to start with alarm. It was a cobweb she hadn"t seen in the shadow. She tried to sc.r.a.pe it off, but it clung to her like a film of paint. It had caught Diamond too; she was trying to brush it off with a paw, but not succeeding.
"Well, a web is harmless, as long as there"s no big spider. We"ll cross first, then take time to get it off."
They forged on. But now the scene had changed. The valley was darker, and the stream had become a rushing torrent. The deer were now rather more sinister creatures with red eyes and big horns. "We can"t cross that! How did it change so fast?"
Even as she watched, the scene changed again, becoming lighter but stranger. Now the creatures were alien, not threatening but not rea.s.suring either, and the river was odd. In fact it looked like mercury flowing down a metallic channel. But mercury was deadly; she didn"t want to breathe its fumes. She stepped back in fright, but found she couldn"t retreat; the p.r.i.c.kly plants had closed in behind them. That intensified her fear.
The dog whined. Cube saw why: the valley had become a graveyard, with walking skeletons beside a sickly flow of pus. This just kept getting worse! Every time she looked, it was different.
Then she reconsidered. Could she be responsible for the changes? They seemed to vary with her mood. So if she could make herself feel good-- The lovely valley returned, with the clear stream and browsing deer. So she was right; all she needed was a good mood. But this was supposed to be a Comic Strip, so there must be a pun. What pun?
Then she saw a little sign: LANDS CAPE. Suddenly it fitted together. She had inadvertently donned a cape, thinking it a cobweb, and so had the dog. It changed her view of the land. Landscape. That was the pun. She had a.s.sumed that the puns would be silly or humorous. This one was not.
"Come on, Seren," she said briskly. "We can get through this, if we just keep our minds clear."
But how were they to have clear minds, while shrouded by the capes? She realized she had to get rid of the mood effect, because any little thing could set off a mood change and then the phenomenon would feed on itself. But the cape was invisible and largely intangible.
Well, there was one way. Cube took off her clothing, carrying the cloak with it. She stuffed her things in the pouch for safekeeping. Of course she wouldn"t want to be seen bare by any other person; she was no voluptuous nymph. As soon as they got out of the Comic Strip, she"d brush off her clothing and put it back on.
She paused, realizing that she had fallen into another pun: ComicStrip, and she had stripped. Well, it couldn"t be helped.
Now the valley was neither pleasant nor horrible; it was purely routine. Just a dip with a bit of water and a few rocks that had seemed like animals before. She was seeing it clearly for the first time.
She used her spread fingers to comb the cloak from Diamond, and soon the dog was seeing clearly too. But why had she seen it differently before she walked into the cloak? She must have been looking through the cloak, so that it distorted her perception.
But then a group of goblins charged along the valley. They surrounded Cube and Diamond, reaching for them. They started pinching bare flesh. Diamond yelped.
"Hey!" she cried. "What are you doing?"
"We"re the vice squad," a goblin answered. "We pinch bare people for no reason."
It was another pun. "Well stop it! The dog isn"t bare, she"s wearing her fur, and I"m not worth it."
The goblin looked at her. "Good point." They moved on.
Cube was not entirely pleased. She knew that had she had the lush figure of a nymph, the goblin would not have agreed. Which suggested that there was reason for the pinching, but not one the pinchers admitted to.
Meanwhile she had a scratch on her bottom where she had been pinched. How sanitary were those goblins? Could she be infected? She"d like to have a magic medicine.
And there it was: a big jar labeled PENICILLIN. She should be able to smear some of that on the scratch, and it would get rid of any infection. She reached into the jar and pulled out--a pen. She tried again, and got a pencil. Then a piece of white chalk.
"This isn"t medicine," she said, annoyed.
Then she got the pun: penicillin made writing utensils like pens and pencils. In the jar.
"Now I understand why folk can"t stand the Comic Strips," she said. "Come on, Seren; we"re getting out of here."
They forged on across the river and up the far slope, and soon were back in regular territory. Cube brought her clothing out of the pouch and used the same technique she had used on the dog to clear the invisible cloak from it. She donned it, and the terrain did not change with her mood, so she was all right.
As they continued east, or "From," the years peeled away, until Cube realized she was in her teens again, and the dog was quite lively. But how far was the thread taking them? Cube could get younger, but the dog would soon reach her limit.
The thread led to a pleasant house in a pleasant garden. Maybe this was their destination. Cube hoped so; she found she was not getting tired, in soul form, but she was getting bored.
They came to the door of the house. Cube knocked. In a moment it opened.
"Oh, there you are!" It was a young woman of ordinary aspect, which was of course better than Cube"s aspect. She was about twenty years old. "Right on time." But of course Cube was about sixteen years old now, so was four years younger.
"On time?" Cube asked, bemused.
"Yes. I suppose I should introduce myself. I"m Lacky, a might-be daughter of Vernon and Lacuna, and my talent is writing things true. That is, what I write comes true, though not always in the way I expect."
Who were Vernon and Lacuna? Cube found the names vaguely familiar, but couldn"t place them. She had met so many folk recently that it was hard to keep them all straight. Probably it didn"t matter. Evidently they hadn"t had this daughter in Xanth, so she was confined here as one they might have had. "I"m Cube, on a private Quest. This is Seren." The dog wagged her tail.
"Oh, that can"t be right. I needed a name for a dog, so I wrote "Diamond." You see, my companion Boss needs company of his own kind, so I thought maybe a nice female dog."
Cube reached down and removed the pacifier from the dog"s collar. "I--I misspoke. This is Diamond."
"Wonderful!" Lacky turned her head. "Boss! You have company!"
A big male black Labrador dog appeared beside her. Diamond looked surprised.
"You were wearing the pacifier," Cube explained to her. "It made you serendipitous. You found what you didn"t expect."
"And of course you"ll stay," Lacky said. "Oh, Prince Dolin will be so pleased. He likes dogs."
"Prince Dolin?" Cube asked blankly.
"The son of Prince Dolph and Princess Taplin. He"s a child; he died early. It"s a long story. I take Boss to visit him regularly. Now I"ll take both dogs."
"I think you have also found a home," Cube said to Diamond. "By surprise, of course. Are you satisfied to stay here?"
Diamond wagged her tail.
Cube found a tear in her eye that she hadn"t expected. She had gotten used to Diamond"s company. But this was best. "Then I"ll go now," she said, turning away before her tears embarra.s.sed her.
"But you must stay and visit," Lacky protested.
"No thank you," Cube said tightly. "I have an urgent mission." She hurried on, following the thread. It was best this way. She realized that she had the pacifier now, so was finding what she wasn"t looking for--such as the loss of Diamond. Yet of course this was best for the dog. She couldn"t begrudge that.
There was a sound behind her. She turned to look, and saw the two dogs racing after her. In a moment they caught up, and of course she had to pet them both. They made a fine couple.
Lacky approached. "You have to meet Prince Dolin. Boss thinks he has something for you."
How did she know what the dog thought? "But I don"t even know Prince Dolin, and I have to be on my way." She refrained from saying that she had used up more than enough time traveling here, apparently just to find a home for Diamond. Of course that was worth doing, but surely wasn"t on the way to Counter Xanth. She suspected she had a long lonely trek back the way she had come. She needed to get moving.
"It"s not far," Lacky said. "Just a little way north."
Diamond caught Cube"s left hand gently in her mouth, and Boss caught her right hand, tugging her north. But the thread went west.
She blinked. The thread made an abrupt turn north. She was sure it hadn"t done that before. It was telling her to go with the dogs.
What could she do? "Then I suppose I"d better meet the Prince," she agreed.
"His castle is right this way." Lacky walked briskly north, and the dogs bounded after her.
Cube caught up to the young woman. "Why would a Prince have anything for me? I have nothing for him, and I can"t stay here."
"He knows that. He likes Boss, but thought that Boss needed some company of his own kind. So I wrote my note, and you brought Diamond. It must have been some trouble for you; I know this isn"t an easy place to reach, from real-time Xanth. He must have told Boss that he would have a reward for whoever brought him company."
"I"m not looking for any reward! We--I found Diamond, who seemed to be lost, and she was good company, and we didn"t even know she would find a home here. It was serendipitous." Then she explained about the pacifier"s magic. After that, Lacky explained how her mother Lacuna, daughter of the original Zombie Master and Millie the Ghost, whose talent was to cause print to form anywhere she chose, had lived a dull life until she got the chance to go back in time, to the year 1078, and propose marriage to the man she liked. It seemed that he had been too shy to propose to her. That had ushered in her retroactive change of life in the year 1090, and suddenly she had three children. Lacky was delivered in 1079.
Cube had heard this story before, but still couldn"t quite connect it to her prior experience. "But then you were a legitimate--I mean regular person," she said. "Why are you here?"
The woman shook her head sadly. "I was the result of Vernon"s proposing to Lacuna."
"But you said he didn"t--" Then it came together. "If he had, then the stork would have delivered you. But because she did it retroactively, and proposed herself, that didn"t count."
"So I was a might-be," Lacky agreed. "Like so many others. Of course there"s not room in Xanth for all of us. It"s not a bad existence. But enough about me; how did you come to be traveling so widely?"
Cube gave an edited account, not mentioning Counter Xanth or the nine Companions. By the time that was done, they had come to a low hill.
"Here we are," Lacky said. "The Prince"s castle. Isn"t it beautiful?" Both dogs wagged their tails.
"But this is just a rounded hill," Cube said. "Or maybe a huge fallen tree." For the slope resembled bark. There was a curlycue pattern of grooves in it, as if some ogre had sc.r.a.ped his fingernails there.
"Well, let"s see." Lacky put her hands to her face, forming a magic funnel, and called "Prince Dolin! Company!" And Boss added a loud "Woof!"
After a generous moment a wooden column rose from the slope. Its sides were smooth and polished. It became a small tower about the height of a man, dark on top where the bark was and with lines showing the growth rings of a tree. But it was hardly a castle.
"It gets better," Lacky said.
A second section rose, around the first, bearing it upward. This was similar to the first, only larger in diameter. When it stopped it was about man-high, with the first column rising another length higher. But it still wasn"t a castle.
Then a third segment lifted, bearing the other two upward, followed by a fourth that raised all the others. Several sub-sections also rose to b.u.t.tress the formation. Now it was indeed a castle, albeit not a big one.
"This way," Lacky said, walking around to the side. Behind was a door, and beyond the door was a flight of steps leading down. Most of the castle was underground. They all trooped down, the dogs leading, and came upon an eight-year-old boy wearing a small crown. Prince Dolin, embracing the dogs.
"The new one is Diamond," Lacky said. "And this is Cube, who brought her here. Cube, this is Prince Dolin."
The boy stood up so quickly his crown fell askew, and he had to straighten it. "Thank you, Cube! Boss is great, but he needed canine company, and now he"s got it. I have a present for you."
"There"s no need," Cube demurred.
"This whisk broom." He presented it to her.
Oh--a token gift. She could accept that. "Thank you."
He glanced at her cannily. "It"s magic."
"It is?" The little broom seemed ordinary.
"It sweeps away distance."
"I don"t think I understand."
"When you have a long way to go, it makes it short. You"ll see when you use it. I know you came a long way to bring Diamond; this will make it shorter."
"That"s nice," Cube said, not sure he was serious.
"You"ll see." Then he returned to playing with the dogs.
"He"s a child," Lacky murmured. "He has a short attention span. We"ll go now." Then, louder: "Bye, Prince!"
"Bye," he said, not looking up.
They exited the castle. "It was really the Prince who needed more company," Lacky said outside. "But I pretended it was Boss. I"m so glad you came."
"So am I," Cube said. This had turned out to be worth it after all, making two dogs and a Prince happy. "Now I should be on my way."
"Of course. If you see my brother, back in real Xanth, give him my regards."
"Your brother?"
"His name is Ryver. He has a wonderful talent with water."
"Ryver!" Cube echoed, stunned. "I know him!" Vernon and Lacuna were his parents. He had told her. That was why she remembered them.
"You do? That"s wonderful! I know his Ptero self, of course, but I"ve never met the real one. Real folk seldom come here."
Acting impulsively, Cube put her hand in the pouch. "Ryver," she murmured. Then she remembered that this wasn"t the real pouch, but just her soul emulation of it. So her Companions weren"t in there.
A hand caught hers. Then Ryver slid out and stood beside her. He spied the woman. "Sis!" he cried, and stepped forward to embrace her.
"Oh, it"s so good to see you, Ryver," Lacky said. "But what are you doing here? You didn"t die, did you?"
"No, I"m traveling with Seren." He turned to face Cube, who was tongue-tied. "She"s on a Quest, and I"m a Companion. I had no idea she was coming to see you."
Cube finally untied her tongue. "Neither did I. It was serendipitous." As she said it, she realized that this was the work of the pacifier. It had renamed her, again, and was causing her to find more unexpected things.