Jumper Cable (18 page)

“Now wait an instant,” Wenda said, alarmed.

“I’m on one bleep of a rebound at the moment,” Charming said. “I need a pretty, innocent, loyal woman to console me.”

“But I wood knot bee that to yew!” Wenda protested.

“I love the way you express yourself. You’re a forest nymph. You’ll never jump into the sea.”

Sharon caught Jumper’s eye and held it relentlessly. “Let’s give them some privacy to work this out,” she said. “Come to my chambers with me.”

“But I can’t do that! I have a mission.”

“To which you will return in due course. What are you going to do, bite off my head? Right this way, you intriguing man.”

“I’m not a man,” he said as she led him away. “I’m a spider.”

“Oh, another shape changer? I like you better than ever.”

“Not exactly. I just—”

She gave him a gentle push, and he found himself lying on her soft bed. She was right there with him. “We’re not in combat mode now, Jumper. Let’s see what we can do with each other.”

“No! This isn’t—”

She cut him off with a kiss.

Still, he did not trust this. “Who are you, really? What are you?”

“If I answer you, will you let me have my way with you?”

He was thoroughly nonplussed. “What way is that?”

“It goes something like this. First we kiss.” She kissed him again, and his smooched face radiated guilty plea sure into his body. “Then we remove our clothing.” Her hands were already busy. In a mere fragment of a moment they were both deliciously bare. She was trying to freak him out with bra and pan ties, except that she wore none. “Then we—”

“No!”

She drew herself close to him. “I don’t think I heard you, Jumper.”

“I said no!” He struggled weakly to escape.

“You say no, but it sounds like yes.”

“No!”

“Do you mean it doesn’t sound like yes?”

“Yes!”

“Ah, you agree to the deal at last.”

He opened his mouth, but she stifled it with another kiss. Her body reminded him forcefully of Angie. But he dredged up another fading effort. “No.”

“Exactly what are you afraid of, Jumper?”

That set him back. She wasn’t asking him to leave his mission or commit to anything. In that respect, she was just like Angie, and excruciatingly tempting. “Just answer my question.”

“Gladly. I am Sharon, sister of Charming, who in real life is not a prince but a lesser Demon, Charon, who associates with the Dwarf Demon Pluto.”

“Pluto!”

“Yes, the one you are opposing. I represent the enemy, in that respect. It is my mission to divert you from your mission.”

This was amazing candor. “Are you a Demon too?” That would explain how she could shape change and do fathoming magic; Demons weren’t limited to single talents the way mortals were.

“A very minor one, Jumper, hardly worthy of the capital. Barely above the uncapped demons common in Xanth.”

“But any Demon is way beyond the comprehension of mortals.”

“Not necessarily. I am close enough to mortality to share some of its passions. Such as this one.” She kissed him again, and stroked him with her hands. “Now I have honestly answered your question, Jumper, and I expect you to do your part.”

“But I’m not going to give up my mission!”

“I have not asked you to.”

“But—”

“I told you that my mission is to stop yours. But that is not our deal of the moment. I have established truth between us, so that we can enjoy our fling. I’ll try to stop your mission another time.”

“You’re not—?”

“Not,” she agreed.

That seemed sufficient. After that a ferocious ellipsis encompassed them. Sharon was every bit the woman Angie was. Of course, somewhere in the back of his awareness, behind a thick cloaking mental curtain, was the awareness that neither was a real woman. One was imaginary, the other a De mon ess. That did not hinder his passion of the moment, but it did make him doubt that there was any real future here, even for a real man, which he wasn’t. Even had it not all been part of a dream.

Then they were returning to the other room. “We really must do this again some time, Jumper,” Sharon murmured.

He could only agree. The long-term future was dubious, but what a present!

Wenda was just getting her own clothing back on. The prince was sound asleep on the bed. Jumper decided not to ask her how she had put him to sleep; he had half a notion.

“He’s some man,” she said as they followed Sammy back. “He gave me a magic ring to invoke, when—”

“I understand.” All too well.

“But we are going to complete our mission,” she said firmly.

“Yes,” he agreed. But he was beginning to wonder: if Sharon worked for Pluto, who did Charming work for? Surely he was another agent determined to stop their mission. They were entering treacherous waters.

“I really dew like him,” Wenda said, oblivious to Jumper’s own situation. “He treats me like a complete woman. There are worse things than being a princess.”

Treacherous indeed.

They reached the Found Cabin. The girls were playing cards again. Maeve was back. She was the first to spy their return. “You found someone!” she exclaimed. “Both of you!”

Jumper froze. Wenda blushed so deeply that the others laughed. She was able to blush quite well, now that she was soft flesh instead of hard wood.

“You really must tell us,” Jenny said. “We’re women; curiosity is our nature.”

“Yew tell them,” Wenda squeezed out through her blush. So Jumper tackled it. “We found the Little Mermaid. She—”

“The Little Mermaid!” Haughty exclaimed. “She’s from a bl**ping different story.”

“So am I,” Jenny reminded her. “Anything can appear in Xanth, and more so in the dream realm.”

“That’s right; I forgot. Carry on.”

“It seems she saved a drowning prince, and fell in love with him,” Jumper said. “But then he married someone else, a princess. So Mercy— that’s her name, Mercy Mermaid— went to work as his servant. But the princess dumped him, and the Heart of Love made him love Mercy instead, but she decided to return to the sea. So now he’s interested in Wenda.”

“And she’s interested in him,” Maeve said shrewdly. “The same way I’m interested in Warren.”

“Exactly the same,” Wenda agreed, her blush making a valiant effort to intensify. “Prince Charming treats me like a complete woman.”

“You signaled the stork!” Eve said darkly.

Wenda’s blush threatened to stain the air around her. “Several times,” she confessed. “He— the Heart— rebound—he’s a virile man.”

“I know exactly how it is,” Maeve said. “Now I know how much fun a man can be, when he tries. Did he give you an amulet?”

“This ring,” Wenda said, showing her hand.

“That’s a wedding ring!” Dawn said brightly. “On the wedding finger. You married him.”

“Oh! I didn’t know!” Wenda’s blush finally overcame her, and she swooned.

“She’s besotted,” Haughty said. “It’s a wonder she returned for the mission.”

“She is loyal to the mission,” Jumper said. “But when it is done . . .”

He didn’t finish, because his own situation was disastrously similar.

“And you,” Maeve said to him. “Was it that shape-changing wench?”

“Sharon,” he agreed. “She—”

“Seduced you,” Eve said, quick to fathom secrets.

“Yes. But that’s not the worst.”

“There is worse?” Olive asked with mock shock.

“She’s Charon’s sister, and Charon is the Demon Pluto’s friend. They are trying to distract us from our mission.”

“How do you know this?” Eve asked dourly.

“She told me.”

“Before or after she seduced you?” Dawn asked brilliantly.

“Before.”

There was half a silence.

“But I told her we would continue the mission,” Jumper said before the silence could be completed.

“Well, now we know Pluto’s strategy,” Haughty said. “He’s trying to distract us, one at a time, by offering us romantic men. Or a sexy wench for Jumper. Can we handle it?”

Phanta looked at the blissfully unconscious woodwife. “I suspect

we’ll have to. Maeve and Wenda are loyal, and Jumper, but the rest of us have not yet been tested.”

“If any one of us deserts the mission,” Eve said gloomily, “it will be lost.”

“That’s the h**l of it,” Haughty agreed. “But what can we do but continue, hoping to be steadfast?”

“Who’s up next?” Phanta asked.

“I believe I am,” Olive said. “With the Head of Mind.”

“Then go to it, girl,” Haughty said. “We have time for one more scene before we have to break for food and p**p.”

Olive picked up the head. “I feel so much saner. I’m sure I’ll be objective.”

“Until you deliver the symbol,” Eve said sinisterly. “Then you’ll be your usual ordinary self again.”

“And that’s when some handsome man will court you and try to corrupt you,” Dawn said dexterously.

“I know. But if Maeve and Wenda can be true, so can I.” She turned to the black cat, who was of course asleep. “Sammy, take us to who needs this.”

The orange doormat became a streak of fur. They were on their way.

After the usual melange of impressions, they came to a really odd region. It seemed to be a castle, but instead of being mounted atop a mountain, it was sunk into a sizable chasm, so that its highest turret barely projected above the ground. Sammy was snoozing at the brink of the cavity. Obviously he could not take them the rest of the way without a disastrous fall.

“I think we must be looking for the man in the low castle,” Olive said. “Though this does seem like a crazy scene.”

“Crazy,” Jumper echoed. “The man has lost his mind.”

“Oh, yes! And I am about to return it to him. If I can reach him.”

A weird notion occurred to him. “Is it possible that he doesn’t want his sanity returned?”

“Ludicrous! Who would ever want to be crazy if he could be sane?”

She had to be correct. “Then we must find a way past this crazy barrier.” Jumper studied it. “The way the castle rises from the depths, it’s almost as if it is surrounded by a moat.”

“Beware the moat monster,” Olive agreed.

They inspected the gulf that surrounded the castle. The moment he got close, Jumper’s head spun with the weirdness of it. Craziness was in the very air.

“I wonder,” Olive said. “Could you fling a web across it? Lasso a turret, so we could swing across to the top of the castle?”

“I can try,” Jumper agreed. He spun a line, whirled it around— and fell to the ground, dizzy.

“The craziness is getting to you,” she said. “Too bad.”

“Could you summon an imaginary friend who could help us cross?”

“Great idea!” She concentrated, and a woman appeared.

“Don’t touch me!” the woman warned. “I’m Anna Phylactic; I’ll shock you with allergy.”

“You’re not the friend I tried to summon,” Olive said, taken aback.

“You’d have to be crazy to summon me,” Anna said.

“Crazy,” Jumper said, seeing it. “It’s affecting you too.”

“You’re right,” Olive agreed. Her allergy-inciting friend faded out.

“So it seems we can’t use our talents for this purpose. It’s like the Good Magician’s Castle.”

“If it is, there must be a way.”

“A crazy way,” she agreed. “Let’s look around.”

“Maybe there’s a stink horn.”

She laughed. “You made a funny. You’re getting more human, Jumper. Did that wench really seduce you?”

“Yes,” he agreed, embarrassed. That was another human trait. “I couldn’t resist her.”

“Was she as good as Angie?”

So she did know. “Yes.”

“But you remain true to the mission.”

“Yes. Of course I’m not really human, so maybe it’s easier for me.”

She glanced sidelong at him. “Perhaps.”

They looked around, but all they saw was a loose piece of paper

weighted down by a broken piece of chalk. Jumper picked both up. “We should find a place to dispose of this litter.”

“You don’t think it’s a stink horn?”

That was irony or humor, which were more human traits. What she meant was, could this be some devious key to entering the castle? Obviously not. Then he saw the words, which his human eyes were able to read: draw bridge.

A crazily variegated bulb flashed over his head. “I think this is a stink horn!”

“How so?”

“I mean it’s a pun, maybe, or literal. We should draw a bridge.”

“But we need more than a picture.”

“Let’s see.” He braced the clear side of the paper against a flat stone and used the chalk to draw a crude picture of a bridge.

“Oh my goodness,” Olive breathed.

Jumper glanced up from the paper. His crude bridge was forming between the brink of the chasm and the castle. The chalk, or paper, or both were magic.

He completed his drawing, and the bridge was complete. It wasn’t handsome or particularly sturdy, but it was there. The crazy device had worked, in this crazy scene.

Sammy came to life. He bounded across the bridge to the castle. Jumper and Olive followed, and soon they stepped onto an upper turret.

“Stink horn,” Olive murmured, and kissed him on the cheek. A winding stair took them into the depths of the castle. Jumper was no expert on castles, but even he could appreciate the weirdness of this one. It had clearly been constructed by a madman. Sammy led them to a crowded little den. There was a wild-eyed man scribbling on more magic paper. Word-filled scrolls surrounded him, piling up on the floor. This must be the one who had lost his mind. The man in the low castle.

“Hello,” Olive said tentatively.

The man looked up. “We can remember it for you retail,” he said. Olive was taken aback. “Remember what?”

“The three stigmata.”

“The three whats?”

“You don’t remember? Too bad. I have total recall.”

“He’s mad,” Jumper whispered, reminding her.

“Oh. Yes.” She advanced on the man. “Take this, please.” She shoved it at him.

The statue’s head collided with the man’s head, and sank in, disappearing. The man paused, astonished. “Suddenly I am sane!”

“Yes,” Olive said. “You lost your mind, so we returned it to you.”

“This is disaster!”