Faun and Games (63 page)

margins."

"But how can this be so?
 
The Green Wizard said we were doing great

favors, and would grow greatly in size."

"And have you grown in size?"

"Not yet.
 
We were wondering-"

"Yet you know you have captured many folk on Ptero.
 
The change occurs

instantly.
 
So you must see that you are not doing favors.
 
It is the

Green Wizard who is growing in size-by giving away those stolen

talents."

"It is true.
 
He has become enormous."

" While you have not.
 
So wouldn't it be better to stop helping him?"

The pyramids consulted.
 
It seemed that however strong their magic might

be, they were not phenomenally smart.
 
"Yes," they decided. "We'll

stop."

"Wait!" Forrest cried in his share of the dreamlet.
 
"If the Green

Wizard is stopped now, the other Wizards will be warned, and will be on

guard.
 
We need to delay it."

"It would be better if you waited three days," Imbri said.
 
"Could you

stop then?"

.
 
"Yes."

"Thank you." Then Imbri thought of something.
 
"What will happen to you,

if the Wizard is mad at you?"

"Nothing.
 
If he bothers us, we'll marginalize him."

"Very good," Imbri said.
 
"We thank you, and the world of Ptero will

surely thank you, in due course."

They left the dungeon, well satisfied.
 
The four monsters were beginning

to twitch.
 
Ghina didn't bother to put them to sleep again; it was

better to have them wake and resume their guard duty, with the Green

Wizard none the wiser.
 
They were able to crawl fast enough to get clear

before any monster actually woke.

"Well, that part of the mission went well," Forrest said.
 
"But now we

have three days to do the other three Wizards.
 
I hope you can open

doors to passages that go there, Jfraya."

"Oh, yes."

"Then let's do the Red Wizard next; I think that's the closest one."

"Actually they are all the same distance from each other," Eve said.

"Because each is in the center of its triangle."

"But since we're red, we might as well do that one," Dawn said.

Jfraya opened a door to a passage slanting to the center of the red

face, and they walked along its wall.
 
That was a relief, after their

struggle on the surface.
 
This one was unused, like the other, but not

perfect.
 
They passed a gallery supported by pillars that resembled

feline creatures: cat-l-pillars.
 
There was what appeared to be a prison

cell there, wherein was a comely young woman.
 
"Look," Ghina said. "The

goblins left a prisoner behind.
 
We should rescue her."

 
I 11 don't trust this," Forrest said.
 
"We had better first find out

why they imprisoned her and left her, and why she seems healthy despite

this neglect."

Eve touched a pillar, learning what it had seen.
 
"That is a geis-a

girl," she said, pronouncing it GAYSH-A.
 
"Anyone who gets close to her

may be caught by her geis, and have to do whatever she says."

They paused, reconsidering.
 
"That's dangerous," Forrest said. "We don't

know what she might demand.
 
The goblins must have isolated her here

deliberately, so she couldn't do them any mischief."

"Pretty girls are mischief," Dawn said.

"Especially those with strong magic," Eve added.

"I think we had better just leave her there," Forrest said regretfully.

"We can't risk being diverted from our mission."

The others reluctantly agreed.
 
"Uncle Grey Murphy could take away her

magic, as punishment, if she did anything wrong on Ptero," Dawn said.

"But Uncle Grey is trapped in the margins," Eve said.
 
"Caught before he

could nullify their magic."

"Then maybe Mother Electra could use an Outlet to free her when no one

else was near," Dawn suggested.

"Which is a secret passage only Mother Electra can open," Eve explained.

.
 
"That's interesting," Jfraya said.
 
"I'd like to meet your mother."

"I don't know if that's possible," Forrest said.
 
"We of larger worlds

can travel to smaller ones by leaving most of our mass behind, but I

think it would be more difficult for those of the smaller worlds to go

to the larger ones.
 
They would probably be insubstantial, and seem like

ghosts."

"Maybe someone with the talent of blessing could reverse the curse of

the geis-a girl's compulsion," Ghina said as they moved on.

Another chamber was filled with snakes.
 
"I wish we had the blanket of

obscurity now," For-rest said.
 
"Those look poisonous."

Indeed, in a moment they were surrounded by very poisonous looking

snakes.
 
The snakes were on the floor, while most of the people were on

a wall, but in the confines of the passage they were close enough.

"There are too many for me to put to sleep," Ghina said.

"And they could follow if I made another door," Jfraya said.

Forrest couldn't think of anything intelligent to do, so he tried

something stupid: "Take us to your leader!"

The snakes made a path through their number toward a special cave.

Forrest and his party walked the nearest wall in that direction. Here

lay a large snake wearing a crown.
 
"It's the King Cobra," Dawn

whispered.

Forrest had another idea, not nearly as stupid as the last one.
 
"O King

Cobra, we crave a favor," he said.
 
"We need to proceed quickly to the

Red Wizard's castle."

The king nodded.
 
Several monstrous snakes slithered up.
 
The travelers,

including Imbri, climbed onto these snakes, and were carried swiftly

onward.
 
They rode at a considerable angle, but the snakes seemed to

understand.

Forrest looked back.
 
Sure enough, the King Cobra looked a size larger.

Soon they were at the end of the tunnel.
 
They slid off the snakes, who

seemed even larger than before, and moved back out onto the red surface.

Now they were correctly oriented, except for Jfraya.
 
She had to lie on

Imbri's back, because she couldn't stand on the ground.

It was still night.
 
They proceeded directly to the Red Castle, and

Ghina put its guardian monsters to sleep.
 
Except for one.
 
This was an

animated angle.

"I recognize that," Eve said.
 
"It's a guardian angle.
 
It protects folk

against math courses."

"But we aren't math courses," Forrest said.

"Right." She approached the guardian.
 
"Please don't let any math

courses get us," she beseeched it.

The angle nodded its acute point graciously.
 
It would protect them from

that threat.

They entered the castle in the same manner as they had the other, and

explained things to the red margins inside.
 
The margins agreed to cease

operations in two and a half days.

They emerged, and passed through a door to a passage leading directly to

the blue face.
 
This one, however, was not completely desetted.
 
"But

there aren't any really bad folk on it," Eve said, after touching its

wall.
 
"Except maybe the cuss today."

"A toad that swears?" Forrest asked.

"Not exactly.
 
It is found in the grounds for divorce.
 
If we avoid the

chamber where those grounds are, it shouldn't bother us."

They avoided that chamber by taking a detour.
 
On the alternate passage

they encountered a man of many colors.
 
His skin was not blue, red,

green, or gray, which explained why he wasn't walking the surface of

Pyramid.
 
Instead it was rainbow colored.

"Hello," the man said.
 
"I am Hue Man."

The six of them introduced themselves, then moved on.
 
It wasn't that

there seemed to be anything wrong with Hue Man, who seemed completely

human, but that they were in a hurry to complete their mission, and

didn't care to advertise it, lest word get to the Wizards.

It was a long trip to the blue face, and by the time they reached it the

night was done.
 
They had to remain in the passage.
 
Forrest still had

some food in his knapsack, and Ghina had some invisible sandwiches, so

they ate lightly and relaxed.

When night arrived, they went out onto another face where they couldn't

walk.
 
This time they tilted the opposite way, but it hardly mattered;

their feet still wanted to be slightly above their heads. Jfraya's feet

went the opposite direction from theirs.
 
But again Ghina was able to

adjust her flying, and she put the monsters to sleep so that the group

could crawl in and alert the margins.

This time they learned something new.
 
The blue margins mentioned that

they were able to communicate along their lines.
 
That was how they

identified people trapped within the enclosures formed by the lines.
 
So

if anyone got in the line of sight of a line, between the margin and the

world of Ptero, he or she would be able to talk to the margin generating

it.
 
The lines did not become solid barriers until they were close to

the surface of Ptero, because there was no sense wasting magic.

Actually, the whole of Pyramid was close to the surface of Ptero, but