"That you don"t have a decent magic talent. Of course I don"t have a talent at all, being only part human." He didn"t count his natural faun traits as a talent.
"I have a decent talent."
"But you said-"
"I"ll show you." She focused on the back of the seat before her.
A picture formed on it.
Forrest stared. "But that"s not a spot! It"s a picture."
"It"s lots of little spots. Dots. All different colors and intensities. So, taken together, they make up the picture."
He looked closely, and saw that it was true. The picture was composed of a mult.i.tude of tiny dots, so closely set that the moment he blinked they fuzzed back into the picture. "But that"s a good talent. I thought you meant spot-on-the-wall as a euphemism for having a worthless talent."
"No, it"s a good talent. But it"s not doing me any good."
"Why not?"
"Because I"m stuck here behind the locomotive, going crazy."
"Crazy?"
"That"s what it does to you. Didn"t you see all those other folk on this coach?"
"They look like dummies."
"That"s because they have gone completely loco. There"s no hope for them; they"ve crashed. But I"m not completely loco yet, so there"s hope for me. That"s why I"m crying." Her eyes began to brim again.
"I don"t understand."
"By the time you understand, it"s probably too late. The effect builds gradually. Each lap the locomotive makes around the castle makes it worse. You"re still fresh; you"re hardly crazy at all. And I guess being close to you makes me less crazy, for a while, until we both are overwhelmed."
Forrest was starting to catch on. "The longer we stay here, the crazier we become? Because of the locomotive?"
"Yes. I was pretty far gone, until you came in. But it won"t last."
"Then we must get off the train before it gets us."
"We can"t get off. Why do you think I was crying?"
"I wasn"t sure. But I hoped to help. Why can"t we get off?"
"Because it won"t stop. The windows won"t open, the doors won"t open, and even if they did, look how fast it"s going."
He looked out the window, and saw the wall rushing by at blinding velocity. He looked across the aisle to the far windows, and saw the moat pa.s.sing just as swiftly. "But it stopped for me."
"It stops to let folk on, not to let them off."
"Why didn"t you get off when it stopped for me?"
"I couldn"t. The seat belt held me."
"What seat belt?" Forrest saw nothing of that kind.
"The automatic seat belt. It clasps you only when the train is stopping."
"So if someone else wants to get on, I"ll be belted too?"
"Yes. It belts everyone, so no one will get hurt."
"But that"s crazy!"
"Precisely."
"Well, we"ll have to get out of our seats while it"s moving, then stop it."
"I tried that. The coach is locked up. No way out of it. The locomotive won"t stop unless everyone is secured."
A bulb lighted. "The Challenge! It"s to make the train stop."
"I guess so," Dot agreed. "But I have no idea how."
"And if I don"t figure it out pretty quick, I"ll go crazy, and become another crash dummy."
"That"s true."
Forrest pondered. He was starting to feel a bit unbalanced already, and he could only have been around the bend once or twice. But there had to be a way to get off the train. He just had to figure it out. Soon.
He saw no way, offhand. The limited scenery zoomed by unabated. Even if he could manage to open a window or door, it wouldn"t be safe to jump out. He had to get the train to actually stop, without fastening him down with a seat belt. That seemed impossible.
But there did have to be a way. That was in the big book of rules, or whatever. He hoped. So what was he overlooking?
There hadn"t seemed to be much way to cross the moat, either. But he had managed to use the psychologist to change things, so that it became possible. Too bad there wasn"t another psychologist, to shrink the locomotive, until it couldn"t pull them along so fast.
Then another bulb started to light, but he managed to suppress it before the woman saw it. There was another person, and she was it. She must be the key to escape. She wasn"t a fellow trapee, she was part of the Challenge.
But her talent was merely spots on a wall. Very good spots, but how could spots stop a train? Unless "Dot, can you make a picture outside the train?"
"Well, if there"s a surface close enough."
"Can you make a picture of a door through that wall?"
"I suppose. But the wall is moving. It would carry away my dots."
"No, we"re moving. The wall is still."
"Oh. I suppose that"s right." She focused on the wall, and in a moment a picture formed. It was a door. It seemed to be right opposite their window, unmoving.
"Very good," Forrest said. "Now can you make that door open?"
The door slowly opened, revealing a nice garden beyond.
"Now can you make a similar door in our window, and open it?"
The dots quickly formed a door, and it opened.
"Now all we have to do is go through those two doors, and we"ll be there," he said with satisfaction.
"It won"t work," Dot said sadly.
But he tried it anyway. He reached across her and put one hand through the nearer open door. And banged his knuckle. "ooooh!"
He brought his hand back.
"The window"s still there," Dot explained. "So is the brick wall. So is the motion. All I do is pictures, not changes. It just looks different." The pictures faded out.
Forrest sighed. The doors were illusion; the window and wall were reality. He should have known. It had been a rather crazy idea.
Crazy. That figured.
He sat back and pondered some more. He didn"t want any more ideas, he wanted something that worked. What could he come crazy up with, before his mind lost its common sense?
He still thought it related to Dot, and her talent. How could her talent stop the train? Not with illusion, but reality?
What he really needed was information. Like a manual of instructions, to know how to stop the train. But of course that was another crazy notion, because mere pictures couldn"t provide that.
Or could they? Maybe it was worth a try.
"Dot, just how detailed can your pictures be?"
"Infinitely detailed," she said proudly. "I can make dots so small they can"t even be seen individually."
"Then let"s make a special picture. Of a manual. On the cover it says LOCOMOTIVE OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS. Can you do that?"
"Sure. But that doesn"t require much detail." The picture appeared in the window, a book with the required words.
"Very good. Now can you open it?"
The cover turned, in much the manner of another door opening, revealing the t.i.tle page inside.
"Show the contents page."
Another page turned, and CONTENTS showed.
Forrest leaned across to read it. Near the bottom of the page was a listing for Chapter 10: STOPPING. "Turn to page fifty," he said, reading the indicated page number.
The pages flipped across, stopping at 50. But the print was too small to read. "Can you make the page larger?"
The image expanded, until it filled the whole window, and the print was legible. Forrest read it avidly: TO STOP LOCOMOTIVE IN ITS TRACKS, PULL THE CORD ABOVE THE SEAT.
He looked up. There was the cord, that he hadn"t noticed before. He reached up and pulled it.
There was a squeal as the train hurtled to a stop. Seat belts jumped out to clasp the two of them, as well as all the dummies in the rest of the coach. oops-he had forgotten that detail.
"You did it!" Dot cried. "You stopped the train!"
"Can you show the contents page again?"
The pages turned back. He found the chapter for SEAT BELTS, and turned to that page: TO RELEASE SEAT BELT, PUSH b.u.t.tON THEREON.
Sure enough, there was a b.u.t.ton. He pushed it, and the belt unclasped him and disappeared on either side. Dot did the same. "You figured it out," she said, pleased.
"Let"s get off this crazy train before it starts again," he said, standing.
But she shook her head. "Thanks, no. This is your Challenge, not mine.
My job is on this train of thought."
He had suspected as much. "Thanks for your help, anyway."
"It was a pleasure. You"re a nice person."
He walked along the aisle to the end of the coach, where the door had folded down into steps. He stepped down and off. As soon as he did, the steps folded up again, sealing the train, and it started moving again.
"Well, I guess you got through that one," D. Sire said, fading into view.
"You can go any time, demoness."
He waited while the train rolled out of the way. Beyond the tracks was an open door in the wall just like the one Dot had pictured. He crossed the tracks and put out a cautious hand, just in case the doorway wasn"t real. His hand didn"t bang. He stepped through. He had won the second Challenge.
Suddenly he was horribly frightened. He reeled, staggering back through the door. His fear abated.
What had happened? He hadn"t seen any monster or hurtling locomotive or anything; why had he been so suddenly and awfully afraid?
"I think you have a problem, faun." Sire faded out, satisfied.
He stepped forward again-and was blasted by the fear. He reeled back again, out the doorway. It was this place: he was afraid to enter it.
But he had to enter it, because it was the only entrance to the castle he had found.
He stepped close to the entrance, stopping just short of the fear, and peered in. There was a small man, or maybe an elf, or maybe in between.
"What"s this?" he asked.
"Isn"t it obvious? I am LA, the lost angel. I am here to help you enter the castle. But first you must conquer your foolish fear."
So it was the third Challenge. All he had to do was nerve himself and go on through. It seemed simple enough. After all, LA didn"t seem to be afraid, so probably there was nothing to fear.