xanth 40 - isis orb Read online

  “He’s an airhead.”

  Was that a pun? It certainly did not seem fair. Hapless decided not to challenge it.

  They crossed a meadow filled with flowers. Bees were servicing them. But one bee flew directly toward the two of them.

  “Get away!” Cylla cried, batting at it. Discouraged, the bee departed.

  “Why did you do that?” Hapless asked. “It wasn’t threatening us.”

  “It was a Wanna Bee. Anyone stung by one of those wants to be something else.”

  Oh. She evidently knew her local wildlife.

  As night approached, they came to a campsite. The enchanted paths were good that way, providing rest areas where needed. The idea was that travelers were safe on such paths, from danger, hunger, or serious inconvenience. They could sleep in comfort, wash in fresh water, and meet other friendly folk along the way. This greatly facilitated travel.

  Sure enough, there was a good-sized pond, a number of pie plants with freshly ripening pies, milkweeds with pods of fresh milk, and pillow bushes near a covered shelter. Just about everything travelers needed.

  They came to the shelter. “Um, about privacy,” Hapless said. “We can take turns bathing in the pond.”

  “We can bathe together.”

  “But I might get a, um—”

  “This is a problem?”

  “Well, um—” He knew he was blushing.

  “Hapless, we may be wrong for each other as life-mates, but we can enjoy ourselves as we travel. We can do or not do whatever we want. We are free.”

  Did she mean what he hardly dared think she meant?

  “Hello, travelers!”

  They looked at each other. They were not alone. That complicated things.

  The fellow traveler turned out to be an ordinary looking young man. “Why don’t you two get acquainted while I wash up,” Cylla suggested somewhat sourly.

  “Okay.” He would take the stranger’s attention while she had some privacy after all. It was amazing what a change a third person made.

  Hapless addressed the traveler. “Hello. I am Hapless, on the way to see the Good Magician, as is my companion Cylla. My talent is conjuring musical instruments, though I can’t play them.”

  “I am Eli, and my talent is also my curse.”

  “Curse?”

  “My powers change every day of the week. On Sun-Day I feel burnt out but can produce light and even start a fire. Monday, which happens to be today, I have no talent but also no curse. Two’s Day I see two of everything, but whatever I do is twice as effective. Wetness Day I am constantly rained on, but can control local wet weather. Thirst Day I’m thirsty but can quench anyone else’s thirst, literally or figuratively. Fry Day I can cook anything into something edible, but it’s so greasy it can be sickening. Saturn Day I am surrounded by rings of dust that separate me from others but I can also make them spin at high velocity to use as a weapon or defensive shield. Normally folk don’t like to travel with me. But I happen to be going to the same place you are, in the hope that the Good Magician can provide me with a good woman who can handle my changes.”

  Hapless digested that. This man had a daunting array of magic that might indeed make it awkward to associate with him for any length of time. But if he was going their way, it would not be easy to separate from him.

  “Yes, that’s the way with most folk,” Eli said, as if reading his thoughts.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

  “What’s this?” Cylla asked from the entrance. She was clean with her hair loose so it could dry.

  “My, what a vision!” Eli said, jumping up to embrace her.

  “Um, I wouldn’t,” Hapless warned, too late.

  Eli rocked back, staring wildly around. “Monsters! Earthquakes! Volcanoes!” he exclaimed, as if beset by all three at once. That actually might have been the case, in his hallucinations.

  “They’re not real!” Hapless shouted. “Just ignore them!”

  Then Eli came out of it. “What was that?” he gasped, disheveled.

  “Cylla has the power of hallucination,” Hapless explained. “You surprised her and made her react. I’m sure she didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “The bleep I didn’t,” Cylla snapped. “You had no business pawing me.”

  Things were off to a bad start.

  “I apologize for being too familiar,” Eli said. “You were just so lovely I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Well, keep your hands to yourself,” Cylla said, determinedly unmollified.

  Hapless tried to change the subject. “Eli has a most interesting talent that is also his curse. It manifests in a different manner each day of the week, except today. Yesterday he was so bright he could start a fire. Tomorrow—” He paused, having lost track.

  “Tomorrow I’ll see two of everything,” Eli said. “But I’ll be twice as effective. The day after I’ll get rained on, but will be able to help others quench their thirst.”

  “And of course you’re going to see the Good Magician so you can get rid of your curse,” Cylla said.

  “Why yes; how did you know?”

  “I just knew you were bad luck.”

  It occurred to Hapless that Cylla was as annoyed as he was about the addition of a third person to their company. But it really wasn’t Eli’s fault. So he tried to change the subject again. “Let me show you my box. It is supposed to contain a thing that is wrong for the one who opens it. We’re not sure it’s always accurate, though.”

  “That sounds interesting. Let’s see it.”

  Hapless brought out the box and passed it across. “Just open it. It seems harmless.”

  Eli opened the box. “Spectacles?” he asked, lifting them out.

  Hapless spread his hands. “Do you have a problem with your vision?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t need them. Maybe that’s why they’re wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Eli agreed dubiously. “Unless there’s something else about them.” He returned the box and tucked the spectacles into his pocket.

  There was a silence that threatened to become awkward. “Let’s see about something to eat,” Hapless suggested. He didn’t mention sleeping arrangements, which were now also a problem.

  “Why don’t I just move on,” Eli suggested. “I can see that the two of you don’t want company.”

  “But you were here first,” Hapless protested. He really wanted to spend the night alone with Cylla, but fair was fair.

  They looked at Cylla. “Oh, stay,” she said with grumpy grace. “We’ll manage.”

  The two men went out to forage for pies and milk, while Cylla set things up inside. When they returned, Cylla was just changing dresses, and her panties were showing.

  “Snap out of it,” Eli said, snapping his fingers. “We must have returned too soon.”

  “I freaked out,” Hapless said ruefully. “But you didn’t?”

  “My father was Mundane,” Eli said. “He faded out before he developed magic. He was immune to panties, and I guess I inherited that though I do have magic. Panties are just clothing, to me.”

  If Cylla was aware she had been seen, she gave no sign of it. She had a table in place for the food, and they ate the pies.

  As dusk closed in, Cylla and Hapless walked around the campsite, admiring its features. “I thought I’d freak him out for an hour so we could tryst,” she murmured. “But he’s immune. Now I really don’t like him.”

  So the flash hadn’t been accidental. Too bad.

  They slept in the shelter, each rolled separately in a blanket harvested fresh from a blanket bush. Hapless was sorry they weren’t alone, and that Cylla had been unable to flash Eli into unconsciousness. But that was the way of it.

  In the morning they took turns washing up in the pond. Then Hapless remembered something. “Are you seeing double today?”

  “I am,” Eli agreed. “It’s awkward, but I’m used to it.”

  “You see two of me?”

  “Yes. You’re li
ke twins.”

  Then Hapless got an idea. “Try the glasses!”

  Surprised, Eli fished them out of his pocket. He put them on. “Well, I’ll be darned and hemmed! They work!”

  “They do?”

  “Now I’m seeing single. These are just what I need for Two’s Day.”

  “Make that three misses,” Cylla said. “That is, three times they weren’t the wrong thing. The only time the thing was wrong was the lipstick.” She paused, considering. “And if a man tried to get fresh with me, that lipstick might be just what I needed to turn him off. So I’m not sure the things have ever been wrong.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood,” Hapless said. “I assumed that thinking outside the box meant that what was in it was wrong. Maybe what’s in it is right, but it’s still better to think for myself.”

  Cylla nodded. “That could be. The Good Magician is usually cryptic.”

  “These glasses certainly work for me,” Eli said. “I wonder if on other days the box will have other things to counter my curses?” But he reconsidered immediately. “But then it might cancel the glasses. I’d better wait until tomorrow to try it again.”

  They had a breakfast of apple pie with cream from a rare creamweed. Then they set off together.

  Soon Cylla slowed. “I’m not used to so much walking,” she confessed. “Maybe you two should go on ahead without me.”

  “Now that would not be nice,” Eli said. He looked around. “Is that a wagon?”

  Hapless saw it: an old blue wagon, the kind that children used.

  “What use is a wagon?” Cylla demanded. “Someone would have to pull it.”

  “Precisely,” Eli said. “Get in, the two of you.”

  Perplexed, they did so. Cylla sat in front, her knees raised, and Hapless sat behind, his legs on either side of her. It was a tight fit, but actually rather pleasant for him, having her so close and snug.

  “Ready?” Eli asked, taking the long handle. Hapless realized that the man could see under Cylla’s skirt from that angle. Then he remembered that he was immune to panties.

  “Ready,” Cylla said a bit grimly. Was she annoyed that her panties might be visible, or that they had no effect?

  Eli turned and pulled, and suddenly they were fairly zooming along the path. Then Hapless remembered: Eli was twice as efficient today. They were moving at twice the rate they would have on their own, and Cylla wasn’t getting tired.

  “He’s a real help,” Hapless murmured.

  “I still don’t like him,” Cylla murmured back. “There’s something about him that turns me off.”

  “Maybe that you can’t freak him out by flashing.”

  “Maybe.”

  They made good progress, thanks to the doubled speed, and by noon came to a camping site they would normally have reached by dusk. So they paused only briefly, and went on to the next, accomplishing two days travel in one.

  “You really helped,” Hapless told Eli.

  “Glad to. But tomorrow will be different.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll reach the Good Magician’s Castle, so it won’t matter.”

  They made a little campfire so they could have a hot meal.

  They took turns again washing up, first Cylla, then the two men. There was a problem when she returned to the shelter: she had forgotten to put her clothing back on. “Uh, Cylla-” Hapless said, half stunned.

  She glanced down at herself as if just now realizing. “Oh. I washed my clothing. It’s not dry yet. I’ll hang it up by the fire.”

  “Put something else on meanwhile,” Hapless said.

  She walked to a bush and harvested a small sheet. She wrapped it around her torso. “How’s that?”

  “That’s fine. It’s a good thing you didn’t have your panties on, because …” He shrugged. Even without the panties, she had had considerable effect. She was an attractive woman.

  “Where’s Eli?” she asked as she went to the fire.

  Hapless looked around. In half a moment he spied the man, frozen just inside the shelter. “He freaked out!” he said, surprised.

  “But he’s immune to panties,” she said. Then she paused, catching on. “Which I wasn’t wearing.”

  “He’s not immune to bare flesh,” Hapless said.

  “That’s interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder if he knows?”

  “I doubt he does, or he wouldn’t have looked.”

  She nodded. “Let’s not tell him.”

  Hapless shrugged again. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” He walked to Eli and snapped his fingers. The man recovered, and resumed walking, unaware that he had been in stasis.

  The patter of rain on his face woke Hapless next morning. They were sleeping separately inside the shelter, yet the water was falling. Then he remembered Eli’s curse. The man was sleeping, and it was raining solidly on him. The two of them were close enough to catch the edge of it.

  “For pity’s sake!” Cylla said, flinging off her wet blanket and scrambling out of the way. Hapless closed his eyes just in time. “The guy’s a menace!”

  “He can’t help it. It’s his curse.”

  “I suppose. Let’s get out of here.” She took his hand and led him outside, his eyes still closed so that he wouldn’t freak out.

  In due course they got dry and dressed, and harvested two umbrellas from the convenient umbrella tree. Eli stayed with his sodden clothing; he was used to this. “Sorry,” he said. “I know I’m not very good company.”

  “But you helped yesterday,” Cylla said.

  Hapless was surprised; she seemed to have mellowed toward the man. After a moment he thought he figured out why: she preferred men she could control, and Eli had seemed uncontrollable by conventional means such as panties. But the discovery of his weakness for the absence of panties meant that she could after all control him when she wanted to, without resorting to her talent for hallucination. That made him eligible. In fact the box had called it: panties were the wrong thing for her, because they stopped her power over him.

  And where did that leave Hapless? Well, the box had indicated at the outset that Cylla was not for him. He liked her, and maybe she liked him, but in the larger picture—outside the box—they were not for each other. He just had to accept that.

  “Sorry about that,” she murmured as if reading his thoughts. “I guess it was not to be.”

  “I guess the box warned me because otherwise I would have gotten the wrong idea.”

  “Probably it wouldn’t have worked out, so we’re saving ourselves heartache by realizing that at the outset.”

  “Yes,” he agreed despondently. “And I guess it warned you that panties were not what you needed. Because they freak out the wrong man.”

  “Yes. I am coming to appreciate that. To think outside the box.”

  They trudged on through the rain. At least Hapless and Cylla had their umbrellas, and there wasn’t far to go, thanks to the good traveling the day before. Before noon they came in sight of the Good Magician’s Castle.

  “I guess this is where we part company,” Eli said. “We’ll have to make our own ways through the Challenges.”

  “Do we?” Cylla asked.

  “Don’t we? Much as I’d like to have your company, I know you don’t like mine.”

  “I am reconsidering. I think I can handle your curse if you can handle mine.”

  “Your hallucinations? Actually I find them intriguing, now that I know they are hallucinations.”

  “You do? Eli, maybe we don’t need to go to all the complicated trouble of asking the Good Magician a Question and having to pay through the nose for his stupid Answer. What we each really want is a good partner who can handle us as we are. Maybe we can solve each other’s problems instead, if that notion’s not all wet.”

  “Oh, I’d like that!”

  “So why don’t we give it a try? I think the box gave us the clue, if only by indicating what was wrong for us.”

  “But the box gave me glasses that corrected my do
uble vision. How does that relate?”

  “I think I understand that. The glasses nullified part of your curse, but that’s not your answer. You don’t want to be depend on things to cancel your problems, you want to handle them as they are. To embrace your talent, not reject it. Rather than wear glasses to do it, why not be with someone who maybe looks better doubled?”

  He looked at her. “You would look twice as good,” he agreed. He brought out the glasses and threw them away.

  She folded her umbrella, letting the rain soak her, and stepped into him for a kiss. Little hearts radiated out.

  Hapless walked away, knowing that he was no longer relevant to their scene. It was time for him to tackle the Challenges, alone.

  What interested him was the way the box had broadened his thinking. He did need to think outside the box, not settling for the too-easy answers it seemed to offer. That would benefit him throughout his life. That was the real lesson of the box.

  He oriented on the castle ahead. He had Challenges to tackle.

  Chapter 2:

  Mission

  The castle looked distressingly ordinary, with a solid outer wall, high turrets, bright pennants, a moat with a visible moat monster, and trees and bushes surrounding the whole. Was it really the notorious Good Magician’s Castle? It looked as if he could just walk up to it, cross the drawbridge, and go on in. It could belong to anyone with the status to rate such an edifice. But this was where the enchanted path had led.

  Well, he would find out. He walked down toward the drawbridge, following the path between the trees.

  And found himself in a bowling alley. He knew that was what it was, because cats were bowling. That made punnish sense; they were obviously alley cats.

  He tried to pass it by, but it was closed, with no apparent exit. This must be the first Challenge. All he had to do was figure out the nature of its challenge, solve it, and move on.

  He paused to consider the scene more closely, and noticed something odd. They were not using regular pins, they were using bowls. Bowls of berries. Green berries, yellow berries, brown berries, white berries, black berries, blue berries—ten different types. When a cat rolled the ball—which was a solid glass globe—it knocked the berry bowls over and the berries flew out. Then kittens came out from a service nook to clean up the mess, and new bowls were set in place. Well, they were entitled to play the game any way they wanted to.