Cube Route (35 page)

    “It affects the extremes more than the middle,” Ryver concluded. “Which maybe makes sense. The question is, is it permanent?”

    “Xanth magic fades when we leave Xanth,” Metria said. “So maybe this will fade when we leave Counter Xanth.”

    “Let's hope so,” Tessa said. “I don't like being Tall Asset.”

    Cube made a note on a pad. “We'll warn the folk back home. Now I'm sure we need to explore farther.”

    They walked on, and the terrain was interesting, but there were no further changes.

    “Can we go faster?” Melody asked plaintively.

    “We're getting bored,” Harmony agreed.

    “We can make a fast carpet,” Rhythm said.

    They had a point. “Make your carpet,” Cube said.

    In a moment the Princesses conjured a large carpet, and the humans sat on it. The centaur and dragon preferred to move on their own.

    The carpet lifted, carrying them to tree-top height. Karia flicked herself and flew up beside it, while Drek moved sinuously below it.

    They moved rapidly east, parallel to the mountains. Suddenly things changed again. Karia, flying beside them, changed colors. Now her wings were brown instead of white, and her flank was white.

    “Airak!” Cube called. “Your colors just reversed!”

    The centaur did not reply. Instead she folded her wings and floated aimlessly.

    “Oh, no!” Cube cried. “She's carried away! I forgot.”

    “We can guide her gently to the ground,” Ryver said. “Then snap her out of it.”

    Cube looked at him. He had been white. Now he was black.

    In fact, all of them had reversed their colors, body and clothing. White became black, red became green, blue became yellow, with shades in between.

    “And it's cumulous,” Metria said.

    “It's what?” Ryver asked.

    “Cloudy, vague, nebulous, confusing, misty--”

    “You're on the wrong track,” Cube snapped. “You mean cumulative.”

    “Whatever,” the demoness agreed crossly.

    “Well, I'm confused,” Ryver said.

    “Wonderful!” Metria said, and kissed him so hard that her face sank part way into his face. He looked a quarter stunned.

    That irritated Cube, but she didn't say so. Instead she focused on the problem. “We need to guide the centaur down.”

    They did so, flying close and nudging Karia until she touched ground. Then Cube snapped her fingers. “Wake!”

    The centaur's eyes opened. “Oh--did it happen again?”

    “My fault,” Cube said. “I called your name when you changed color.”

    Karia looked at herself. “Oh, my!”

    “Now we have had two reversals, and they're cumulative,” Cube said. “I think we need to be sure we can eliminate them.”

    “Sidestepping should do it, as we surmised,” Karia said. “I doubt the local magic extends beyond Counter Xanth.”

    “We hope so,” tall Tessa said.

    Cory and Tessa formed their sidestepping aisle, then brought the others in. As each entered it, he or she reverted to normal. They hugged each other in gladness; it seemed that the changes had bothered them more than they had indicated.

    “So now we know we can reverse the reversals,” Karia said. “So it doesn't matter if they are permanent and cumulative; we can escape them. But colonists will have to keep them. This rather limits the field, I suspect.”

    “And we'd better find out what other reversals are here,” Ryver said. “So we can warn colonists.”

    “And take them via sidestepping to only the particular reversals they want to have,” Cube said. “Some short folk may want to be tall, some may prefer to change colors.”

    They set about exploring methodically, flying the carpet in a squared-off pattern across the width of the land. It seemed to be the same general shape as Xanth, but the vegetation and animals were different. They saw what looked like six-legged cows grazing, and four-winged birds flying, and twin-hulled fish swimming. There were occasional clouds of sparkling insects. Nothing seemed friendly or hostile; some looked at the carpet, but without much curiosity. It seemed that they had not seen Xanth folk before, so did not recognize them as friends or enemies. That suggested in turn that it was safe to colonize, especially if the colonists treated the native creatures with respect.

    They did encounter other reversals, which they nullified as soon as they understood them, and marked their territories. One section made a smart person stupid, and vice versa; another made nice folk mean, and the opposite; another made happy folk depressed, and the other way around. Strong-weak, big-small, fat-thin, honest-dishonest, healthy-sickly. Most of the effects were moderate, because the members of the exploratory party were in the middle range of most things, but they were able to tell by the shifts in their members. They landed at each site, analyzed them, and Cube made a note. Then they retreated to sidestepping to nullify the change, and emerged to fly on to the next. Thus they were generally affected by one reversal, but not by the prior ones.

    Even so, some of the reversals were startling. At one site the people started quarreling violently. Cube felt it too; she hated all the Companions. But she realized that this was not natural. “Our feelings are changed,” she said. “Friends have become enemies.”

    They hastily returned to the sidestepping aisle, and were friends again. Judging by the power of their mutual dislike before, they had to be excellent friends now.

    But there was worse. On another site Cube felt a strange change in her body. She looked around, and found herself surrounded mostly by men, including one floating demon. There was just one woman, a rather pretty one. “Ryver!” she exclaimed. “You're a woman!”

    “And you're a man,” he/she retorted.

    Cube looked at herself. She was male. They had all changed gender.

    “You know, you're not bad looking as a man,” the male centaur said. “Evenness and delicacy of feature doesn't matter as much for a man.”

    “I don't want to be a man!” Cube said.

    The others laughed. They understood perfectly. They retreated again to the aisle and were restored. Drek had become a female dragon, but the genders of dragons weren't as obvious to human folk.

    “But there may be some folk in Xanth who do want such a change,” Metria said.

    Cube marked the spot on her map. “They are welcome.”

    Another change was trickier to fathom. The humans didn't change, but there was a fine male centaur who wasn't Karia. “Who are you?” Cube asked.

    “I am Kerd,” he replied.

    That would be Drek, backwards. He had changed form. “Then who is the dragon?”

    “She is Airak,” the centaur said. “Oops.” For the dragon was drifting away. He ran after her. “Snap out of it, female,” he said.

    That was Karia all right; she had been carried away at the sound of her name.

    “I apologize, gourd style,” Drek said. He caught her serpentine head in his hands and kissed her snoot.

    “That's how they do it, in the gourd,” Metria explained, spying Cube's blank look. Metria now appeared to be a mortal human being--and Ryver was a demon.

    They returned to the aisle. “Thank you for rescuing me,” Karia said to Drek. “Perhaps someday I'll return the favor.”

    “But what was the reversal?” Cube asked, still somewhat mystified.

    “I believe it is that different creatures exchange forms, not genders, with those they happen to be closest to at the moment,” Metria said. “I was next to Ryver, so we switched. Karia and Drek were close. The rest of you were all humans, so the change didn't make any difference.”

    “This is remarkable,” Cube said, her appreciation of the wonders of this realm growing.

    At another spot, good became evil. Cube brought out the Hell Toupee and became good again; its effect reversed also. That made it potentially very useful.

    As the day faded, it seemed they had done enough. “We know the general nature of this land,” Karia said. “We can continue mapping it in the future, but probably it is time to wrap up here and return to Xanth for the night.” The others agreed.

    They checked one more section--and the change was dramatic. The others were suddenly staring at Cube.

    “What is it?” she asked uneasily. “Have I turned into a frog?”

    “Here is a pond,” Karia said. “Look at your reflection.”

    Cube did--and saw a woman who could have been Silhouette's sister in beauty. Where had she come from? She looked at the others, and saw that they had changed; Karia was now a hag of a centaur with shaggy wings, standing beside three ugly children and a homely man.

    Slowly it came to her: the lovely woman was herself.

    Amazed, she tried the only thing she could think of at the moment: she summoned a nickelpede. It was the most beautiful creature she had seen. This region really did convert ugliness to beauty, and vice versa.

    “We'll retreat to the sidestepping aisle,” Karia said. “You may wish to remain here.”

    Cory and Tessa set up the aisle, and the others entered it. Cube lingered, staring at her reflection. The Good Magician had said she would be beautiful when she completed her Quest; this was the proof of that. Now at last she had her desire.

    “It's true,” Ryver said. “You are transformed. Now at last your appearance matches your character.”

    “All I have to do is stay here,” she breathed.

    “Yes. You are beautiful and I love you. But--” He shrugged.

    “But what?” she asked.

    “What would you want with me, now? I have lost my looks.”

    “But I don't judge by appearance,” she protested. “I know better.”

    “Do you? Why were you interested in me? I'm not smart, I'm not strong, I'm not deep. My talent is way below Magician caliber. I'm just an ordinary guy. What did I have, besides my appearance?”

    Cube realized that he was right. She had been foolishly attracted to his handsome face. Now that was gone. She had objected to being judged by her appearance, but she had been doing the same. She was a hypocrite.

    “So there's no point in my staying here,” Ryver said. “You can do better, now.”

    Had she been in Xanth, a bulb would have flashed. But there were no punnish effects in this new land. Still, she understood that the place and time to abolish her hypocrisy was here and now.

    She brought out her water ball, which she had never forgotten. It had been her link to him. “I love you too,” she said.

    “You kept the ball!”

    “Always. It was my memory of you.” She put away the ball, put her hands on his arms and drew him in to her. She kissed him and let him go.

    He stood for a moment, then spoke. “In Xanth I'd be freaked out,” he said. “As it is, I am merely dazzled.”

    “Stay here with me, and I'll dazzle you constantly.” She found that she loved having this power of beauty.

    “But I'm ugly!” he protested.

    “You're still you.”

    He gazed at her with the sheer adoration reserved for sheer beauty. “You mean that?”

    “Yes. I of all people know that appearance is only one aspect of a person, and beauty fades with age. I am happy to be beautiful for you, because I want to please you. You don't have to be handsome for me.”

    Still he protested. “But you know that I didn't love you until you were beautiful. I knew your qualities, but love wouldn't come before that. I'm shallow.”

    “You're a man. That's not quite the same. You were upfront about that. You never deceived me. Now I have it, and I'm glad it enabled me to gain your love.”

    He nodded. “I rather thought you would say that. You know I can recover my appearance by stepping into the sidestep aisle. But I can't be handsome here, where you are beautiful.”

    “But since the effect is cumulative, I can go from here to another section, and suffer a change, but I'll remain beautiful. So if it is important for you to be handsome, I can join you there.”

    “We'll see. But we'll both have to remain here in Counter Xanth. I don't mind, as long as I'm with you.”

    But that reminded her of something else. “I can't remain here. I have to complete my Quest, establishing a safe route to this realm. I have to return the Princesses to Castle Roogna, and Drek Dragon to his home in the Purple Mountains. I can't leave the others in the lurch.”

    “But you will lose your beauty if you leave.”

    Cube knew it was true. She suffered a siege of grief, then marshaled her gumption. “And that means I will lose you too. I hate that. Still, I have to do what I came to do. But at least I have had beauty and your love for this wonderful moment. That memory will last the rest of my life.”

    Ryver nodded. “We will return to Xanth.”

    She hoped he would ask to kiss her again, but he didn't. “Yes, we'll return and get the job finished.” She hoped no tear was showing. This was one time she almost wished her gumption would fail her, but it didn't; she would do what she had to do, regardless of the cost.

    They stepped into the aisle. Cube felt the reversion as they did; her beauty was gone. “We're going back,” she said. “I have to--”

    “We know,” Karia said. “We've worked it out.”

    “But you have spent most of the time in the pouch. How can you have the larger picture already?”

    All of them looked at her knowingly. Something was up.

    “Let me tell her,” Metria said.

    “Tell me what?” Cube asked, nettled. Losing her dream was bad enough, without some other complication.

    “You put a gourd in the pouch,” Metria said.

    Cube remembered. “So I did. I never had to use it.”

    “But we used it.”

    “How could you? You were in stasis.”

    “Not quite. We were asleep. That's different. We dreamed.”

    “But demons don't dream.”

    “I have half a soul,” the demoness said. “Now I can dream. We couldn't leave the pouch, even in our dreams, but we found we could share a dream. So we had a dialogue--a number of dialogues, actually, there in a pleasant dream setting. We compared notes, we argued points, we hashed things out. We got to know each other really well.” She glanced at Karia, then at Drek, and smiled almost tenderly. “We concluded several things. One is that we like each other and want to remain as a group, even if we separate physically at times. Another is that you are a truly worthy person, and deserve your reward. We helped you get it.”