Cube Route Part 45

"Etcetera." And on the table were not only sweet rolls and gla.s.ses of drink, but several cookies and pastries, together with a.s.sorted apples, bananas, and other fruits.

"Your talent!" Cube exclaimed. "Et Cetera!"

"Exactly," the girl agreed. "Someone else has to start it, then I can add on to it. I can't do it purely on my own."

"Talents often do have limits," Cube agreed. "Mine is summoning nickelpedes. I would rather have a more feminine talent."

"Why?"

Oh. "I'm a girl."

Etcetera looked at her more closely, then blushed fetchingly. "Oh. I thought--never mind."

Cube knew she just had to get beautiful.

As they ate, a white rabbit hopped close. "Oh, what a lovely bunny!" the girl exclaimed.

The rabbit's ears blushed flattered pink.

"He's probably just looking for sc.r.a.ps," Cube said.

The rabbit's ears turned angry red.

Could it be? Cube decided to experiment. "You're a pretty sorry example of your kind," she said to the rabbit.

The rabbit's ears turned black with mortification. It was true: they changed color with the creature's mood.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that. I just wanted to see your ears change."

The rabbit gazed at her, his ears slowly fading to neutral gray.

"Let's get him some nice cabbage," Cube said.

"Etcetera!" And cabbage appeared, along with lettuce, carrots, and parsley.

The rabbit's ears turned happy white. He started eating the lettuce.

A wolf appeared at the edge of the forest. The rabbit's ears turned fearful yellow.

"A dangerous creature can't come onto the enchanted section," Cube said. "He can't get you."

The rabbit's ears returned to white. He resumed eating. But then he paused, his ears turning green.

"Oh, some broccoli or asparagus must have gotten in there," Etcetera said, chagrined. "I'm so sorry."

"Have a bite of apple," Cube said, putting one down for the rabbit. That soon put the ears right.

When they finished their meal, Cube thanked Etcetera and mounted Charles to travel on. The rabbit's ears turned sad blue; he was sorry to see them go.

Then Cube saw another woman coming from the other direction. There was something odd about her. Her hair was moving in an unnatural manner. As she walked under a low-hanging ma.s.s of foliage, her hair lifted up to push it away. She had prehensile hair!

As Cube rode on, she saw the woman pause by the rabbit, then squat down. Her hair reached out to stroke him. The rabbit's ears turned white. He wasn't blue anymore. That made Cube feel better.

They continued north. Suddenly a cloud formed before Cube's face. "My, you're an ugly one," it said.

At first Cube thought it was Metria, but then remembered that the demoness was in the pouch. "Look who's talking."

The cloud formed into a handsome man. "How do you like me now? Demon Lete, just drifting by."

Cube thought she heard a groan. "D. Lete," she said. "Why don't you subtract your presence?"

"I can't," he said. "I gave up my talent to be the prize that Kim Mundane won."

Cube remembered that Kim had the talent of erasure. "You didn't do that voluntarily."

Lete looked abashed. "I was in one of Demon Professor Grossclout's cla.s.ses, and I sa.s.sed him. Then he taught me a lesson I wouldn't forget. He deleted my talent."

That was a pretty stringent punishment. Cube had some sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I'm sure I deserved it." The demon faded.

Cube made a mental note never to cross Demon Professor Grossclout.

In the evening they came to another campsite. This time there were two men there. Cube was slightly wary, but reminded herself that no hostile folk could get on the enchanted paths, and anyway, she had her nickelpedes, which she could surely use if she jumped off the path and summoned them. So she put a positive face on it. "Is there room for one more?" she called.

"Certainly," the older man replied. He looked to be about forty-seven. "I'm Terry Tamagni. My son Jerry and I were about to swim in the pool. You're welcome to join us."

Cube dismounted. "I'm a girl." She hated having to say that so often.

"Oh," Terry said, embarra.s.sed. "I--we're rather new here. Still finding our way."

"In fact we're Mundane," Jerry said.

That meant they were here without magic. They were worse off than she was.

"Nice horse," Terry said.

"I changed my mind," Cube said. "I'll swim with you, if you don't mind."

The two men exchanged a glance. "No problem," Jerry said. He looked to be about twenty-four, a nice age.

So they stripped and swam, and splashed each other, and it was fun. Then they dried and harvested a.s.sorted pies for dinner, and talked about this and that. Cube found that she enjoyed socializing with men as well as women, when it was just companions.h.i.+p. These ones were nice enough. She had never actually played with men before; there had always been the problem that they saw her as a woman--or didn't. With Mundanes it didn't seem to be a question. She was happy to answer their questions about Xanth, rea.s.suring them that it was a nice enough place to be.

In the morning the men continued on south, and Cube and Charles went north. In due course they came to the Gap Chasm. This time the thread led directly across it, straight from one side to the other, though the air.

Cube contemplated that. Then she put her hand to the pouch. "Metria."

The demoness appeared. "No problem," she said. "It's the invisible bridge. Just walk on across." She slid back into the pouch.

Invisible bridge. Cube nerved herself and reached tentatively forward over the emptiness with one foot. And found solidity. In fact there was a walkway there, and a rail for her hand. That helped.

She walked out over the dizzily deep chasm, leading Charles, who was as nervous about it as she was. The bridge was strong; it supported them both.

When they were halfway across, they encountered a column of people going the other way. Oh, no! The bridge was wide enough only for one, and Charles would not be able to turn around. She might summon Karia to take her on across, but that wouldn't do for Charles.

The lead man spied them and halted. "We have a problem," he said.

"h.e.l.lo. I'm Cube, and this is Charles. I don't think he can turn around."

"We're on a schedule; we can't afford to back off and wait for you to clear the bridge. We'll have to pa.s.s each other. But there's a problem."

"Not enough room," Cube agreed.

"I think there is room, if we squeeze. But we are blessed, or cursed, with magic that prevents any person from pa.s.sing us without guessing our first names. We're not allowed to tell others what they are."

"It could take me all day to guess all your names!" Cube protested.

"Not necessari--lee," he said.

Was that a groan in the back of her mind? Cube pondered half a moment, and got it: pun names. He had given her the hint.

She looked more closely at the first Lee. He was tall and thin. "Thin," she said.

"ThinLee. You catch on quickly," he agreed, angling to slide by her and then the horse. There was after all room, with a squeeze. Cube didn't mind squeezing by a man like that, innocent as it was; she could pretend it wasn't innocent.

The second Lee was a plump smiling woman. "Cheerful," Cube said.

"CheerfulLee," the woman agreed, pus.h.i.+ng past her. Cube's pretending turned off.

The next was a frowning man. "I ought to just push you off the bridge," he said angrily.

"Angry," she said.

Angrily he shoved by her. She pretended he was afraid she would seduce him.

Soon enough she and Charles made it by all the Lees, and she never had to summon a nickelpede and Charles never needed to knot a muscle. Her mind had done the job. That pleased her.

But the travail of pa.s.sage across the gulf had not ended. A cloud appeared, low and small and wild. "Fracto?" Cube inquired. "I'm not looking for any trouble."

A fuzzy face formed on the cloud. "Die!" it breathed. Then it blew out such a stiff gust of chill wind that Cube had to grab on to the invisible rail to keep her place.

"What are you doing?" she cried, alarmed.

"Keeping my own," the cloud said windily. Then it blew a harder and colder gust right at Cube and the horse. There was snow in it, and ice formed on the rail, making it slippery. The force of wind made the bridge swing and start to turn over.

"Fornax!" Cube cried, catching on. But it did her no good; she and Charles were already falling off the bridge, down toward the awful bottom of the chasm. They were doomed. No one would know why they had fallen from the bridge and perished.

Then something strange happened. Time froze around them. Cube and the horse stopped falling, remaining in stasis at weird angles. So did the cloud, which now looked horrified. There was an awesome scintillating environment of magic power much greater than anything the little Princesses had worked.

GOTCHA!.

Cube looked where she sensed the exclamation. There on the frozen bridge stood a ludicrous striped donkey-headed dragon. He winked at her.

Then cloud and dragon vanished. The amazing plasma of magic faded. Cube and Charles were back on the bridge, exactly as they had been before the cloud appeared. The air was calm. They proceeded somewhat numbly on to the end of the bridge.

Cube realized that the Demon Xanth had been waiting to catch the Demoness Fornax in the act of interfering with the Quest, and finally nailed her. This was the Land of Xanth, where he had supreme power. Fornax would have an awful time getting out of this mess. She had been caught meddling in Xanth's business, a no-no for Demons.

There would be no more interference of that nature.

Cube's knees were weak, but she was exhilarated. She realized that the Demon Xanth hardly cared what happened to a lone mortal woman or horse, but perhaps his consort Chlorine did, and he had been looking out for them for his own reasons. She had seen Demons in action, opposing each other, and survived the experience. That alone was mind blowing.

But she still had her Quest to finish. She quelled her galloping heart and focused on that. She was back on her own.

The thread did not continue north beyond the Gap. Instead it turned east and angled down the face of the cliff. She stood at the brink, daunted. How was she going to go there? She didn't have the ability to walk down the cliff as if it were level. That applied to only certain parts of the Gap Chasm, and this wasn't such a part.

"You look as if you have a problem," a voice said from just below her. Cube was so startled she almost jumped, which could have been disastrous.

In most of a moment she saw that there was a man on the cliff below her. He had been in shadow so that she had missed him. "Why don't you fall?" she asked.

"I have sticky hands and feet," he explained. "It's my talent." He pulled a hand away from the stone, and there was a faint snapping sound as it unstuck.

She nodded. "I could use that."

He climbed up to the top and stepped over, joining her. His hands and feet looked normal, but she had seen them in action. "You have to go down there?"

"Yes."

"And your horse?"

"Yes, of course."

"I can show you a way."

Could he really? "Can we make a deal?"

"What do you offer?"

A pretty woman would have only one acceptable answer, but Cube didn't have that problem. "I can summon nickelpedes. I could give you some tame ones."

"Tame nickelpedes? I never heard of that."

"I never heard of someone with sticky hands and feet. It's my talent."

"Let's see."

She summoned a nickelpede. It perched on her hand, looking around. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Ray."