Cube Route (36 page)

    “But I can't keep my beauty,” Cube said. “I've already lost it.”

    “Was it really beauty you wanted--or the love of a good man?”

    Cube stood there, emotionally stunned. “The man,” she confessed. “The beauty was just the means to that end.”

    “Let me,” Ryver said. He approached Cube, so handsome she was smitten all over again, despite cursing her own foolishness. He took her in his arms, and she yielded, loving his touch for whatever reason. He kissed her, and she felt as if she were floating.

    After a timeless time she found herself standing, recovering her speech. “You didn't have to do that. I know that--”

    “I love you,” he said. “I no longer mind what you look like. Love doesn't turn off like that.”

    “But--”

    “You're still you. You didn't dump me when I was ugly. Why did you think I would dump you when you lost your beauty?”

    Cube fumbled for words. “Well, men are affected by, everyone knows--a woman's appearance is all that really counts. I have to be beautiful, if--”

    “You had to be beautiful to win my love. Because of my male nature. You won it. Now it remains. Our magic talents don't change in Counter Xanth, and neither does the magic of love. And it isn't as if you won't be beautiful again. We'll return to Counter Xanth many times, and stay as long as we want, after we wrap up the Quest.”

    Cube began to understand that he meant it. She gazed at the others. “You--the rest of you--knew?”

    “They knew,” Ryver said. “They told me in the dream that I would never find a better woman than you, and finally I believed. I was just waiting for the beauty to clinch it. I already knew you were the one for me.”

    “And you aren't the only one,” Metria said. “Drek and the centaur are getting together.”

    “But--”

    “We found affinity in our minds, in the dream dialogue,” Karia said. “And we found that we can change our forms, in the right section of Counter Xanth, as you saw. With a little management we can both be dragons for a while, or both winged centaurs. We'll be staying there, after the quest is done, to help colonists find their way around a perplexing realm.” She smiled briefly. “And nobody need know my name.”

    Cube realized that that solved the problem that had originally brought Karia to the Good Magician, though not in the anticipated manner.

    “And Tessa and I will move to the Gap building,” Cory said, “to be there to sidestep colonists to Counter Xanth. We have found our mission in life.”

    “We'll be in touch too,” Melody said.

    “We can't stay, because we're still children and Mother won't allow it,” Harmony added.

    “But we'll be there when we're needed,” Rhythm concluded.

    “And so will I,” Metria said. “I'll pop back and forth to keep the rest of you in touch. This will be a continuing project. We have each found what we truly wanted, though not all of us understood our true desires at the outset. We have all received our rewards.”

    “Your rewards?”

    “Some of us sought a useful mission in life.” The demoness glanced at Cory and Tessa, then at herself. “Some sought true love with a worthy other.” She glanced at Karia and Drek, then at Ryver and Cube. “Or a better understanding of the nature of magic.” She glanced at the three Princesses.

    “But they are already Sorceresses,” Cube said.

    “With more power of magic than we know how to control,” Melody said.

    “For example, the thread,” Harmony added.

    “We made it, but didn't know how it worked,” Harmony concluded.

    “It led me all over Xanth!” Cube said. “Instead of straight to Counter Xanth.”

    “We struggled with that for some time,” Ryver said. “Finally we concluded that it was like water.” He formed a water ball. Cube smiled and brought out hers again. “It forms marvelous contours, sinuous rivers, round lakes, and dramatic waterfalls, but it has no intelligence or artistic sense. It merely seeks the lowest level it can find without ever running uphill, unless there's a spell on it. The thread sought Counter Xanth, but had to align with the needs of the person it was made for.”

    “That was me,” Cube said. “I just wanted to go to Counter Xanth.”

    He smiled at her, and she melted. “You were not ready, when you started. So it took you to the experiences you needed to become the kind of person who could handle Counter Xanth. It had no intelligence of its own, it just oriented on the need, with all the power of Sorceress magic cubed.” He smiled at the Princesses, who giggled. “It was a learning route.”

    “A learning route! Some of the things that happened--”

    He silenced her with a spot kiss. “For all of us. I needed to broaden my own outlook, so as not to be completely dominated by appearances. To be worthy of you. You had gumption, but lacked experience with people, so it enabled you to meet many. You needed to learn more about Mundanes, because you will be guiding some of them to Counter Xanth, so it took you to Silhouette. You needed to appreciate the role Nimby plays in Xanth, so it took you to him. You also needed experience with realms whose magic is fundamentally different from that of Xanth, so it took you to Ida's moons. When you were ready, it took you to Counter Xanth.”

    Cube wanted to argue, but realized it was true. She had fleshed out considerably, in understanding and appreciation of the variety and wonder of Xanth. She was not the frustrated woman she had been. The thread had done it. “You have it all worked out,” Cube said, awed.

    “We do,” the demoness agreed. “You did your part; now we'll do ours.”

    “But you have done yours. You all helped me get through at key spots. Karia flew me places, the Princesses made the thread, Cory and Tessa did the sidestepping, Metria helped me deal with difficult people and demons, Drek drove off attackers, Ryver--” She paused. What had Ryver done?

    Karia smiled. “Ryver found the gourd in the pouch, and used it to contact the rest of us. He made our dream dialogues possible. We would have been far less effective, otherwise, and not gotten to know each other as well.”

    And they had been remarkably savvy when she brought them from the pouch. So Ryver had been a key player too. “But--”

    “Me thinks she protests too much,” Karia said.

    “I'll stop it,” Ryver said. He embraced Cube again and kissed her. Repeatedly.

    “Show her,” Metria advised him.

    “Show me what?” Cube asked, bemused.

    He took her into the pouch and showed her the dream setting that the gourd enabled. It was a lovely chamber with romantic pictures on the wall and pillows piled high on the floor. “This is now our bower of love,” he said. This time he did not stop at kissing.

    By the time her wits returned, in and out of the dream, they were back in the Gap Chasm building in Xanth. She remembered none of their trip there; someone else must have carried the pouch. She was still floating on an inner sea of love.

    “There's someone at the brink,” Metria said, appearing in the chamber where Ryver had been keeping Cube in chronic bliss, no longer using the dream setting. “I think you need to see to it in a hurry.”

    Cube had little idea how much time had passed, but she suspected several days. The stone house had been provisioned with furniture and food and other nice things. Cory and Tessa had one room, Ryver and Cube had another, Charles Horse had a nice stone stall, and the Princesses, Karia, and Drek were gone. She hurried out and up the ramp to the surface of Xanth. Because the stone house was near the invisible bridge and the enchanted path to the north, it was easy for them to intercept travelers.

    There was a young woman. She looked extremely ill, and there was something wrong with one foot. She also looked as if she was about to jump into the Gap Chasm.

    “Hello,” Cube said. “Have you lost your way? I am Cube; maybe I can help you.”

    “I don't think so,” the woman said. “I am Sarah Spirlock, from Mundania. I--came to Xanth because they said I could be made well by a healing elixir. But I seem to be immune to it. All I face in life is more pain. So there is nothing left but to end it quickly.”

    Cube remembered the section of Counter Xanth where healthy folk became sickly, and vice versa, the most extreme cases changing the most. Here was the first colonist, who would become radiantly healthy. They would have to have her ride on Charles, because she couldn't walk along the sidestepping route, but that was easy enough. Cube remembered how dramatically Silhouette's life had changed after she had tried suicide, then gained what she needed. Cube knew exactly how to handle this; she had been there before, as it were. “Oh, Sarah, you are going to like where I will take you.”

    “I don't understand.”

    “None of us do, at first.” Cube took her hand.