They approached the nearest centaur cautiously. "If I may inquire," Kim inquired, "what is going on here?"
"We are all foundering," the centaur replied, pained. "Is that not evident?"
"I guess it is," Kim said. "I suppose this is because of the foundry?"
"This, too, should be evident."
"But why did you come here, if it is so dangerous for you?"
"We came to attend Centaur Vention, of course. But a random cursor passed, and dropped a cursory curse, rendering our Vention Center into this awful foundry. Now we are unable to get away, because of our tender feet."
"There's an ogre making centaur shoes to the east," Kim said. "Would those shoes help you to walk?"
"Certainly. But none of us can hotfoot it over there, and in any event, there probably are far too few shoes for us. What we need to do is nullify the cursor's curse. Then the foundry will be gone, and we will not need shoes."
"I am sorry to learn of your distress," Kim said. "But I am not sure what I can do about it. It's really not my problem."
"Have no concern. When you attempt to pass the foundry, as you must to proceed along your route, you too will founder. Then it will be your problem also."
Kim considered that. This definitely sounded like a challenge. She would have to rise to it. "What do you think I can do about it?"
"Since you have not yet foundered, you might be able to find the natural antagonist to the foundry, which of course is the lostwet"
"Of course," Kim agreed. Puns were serious business in Xanth. "The lost-wet would cancel out the found-dry."
"Precisely. Then we would all be free of our founder."
Kim decided to test the extent of this challenge. "On the other hand, I might avoid the whole thing by going back the way I came, and seeking another route south."
"You would have to cut cross-country through the impenetrable jungle," he pointed out. "I suspect you would find that very tiring. Then you would encounter the Big Top, the Gnobody Gnomes, and Com-Pewter. I suspect you would rather accept a ride from one of us, bypassing all those hazards."
Kim saw the way of it. "I suspect I would," she agreed. "Where do you suppose I might find the lostwet?"
"There is a lost wax trail to the south which ought to lead there."
"Lost wax?"
"It was lost in the process of casting the foundry curse."
She should have known. "I shall follow that trail," Kim agreed.
They turned south. Bubbles soon sniffed out the smell of wax. It looked as if a huge vat of melted wax had spilled and flowed and cooled and solidified, forming the path. This would be known as the lost wax process. Now it had hardened so that it was easy to walk on.
At the end of the trail of wax was a small lake. The wax seemed to have flowed out across the surface of the lake, cooling, and finally formed a thin wax seal over it. The seal was very strong, so that they were able to walk out on it without falling in the lake. It was transparent, so that they could see right down to the bottom of the lake.
This seemed to be a flat expanse. At the near end was a smooth slope, while at the far end was a portal, similar to the ones she had used to let the water into the naga tunnel. In the center of the portal was a small keyhole.
Kim brought out the key she had saved from the ogre's work. It was now cool and firm. Could this be the key to that lock? This was the game; it was bound to be the proper key. So she would have to put the key in that lock, and open that portal. Beneath it should be the lostwet.
But how was she going to get the key there? She could see the keyhole, but the transparent wax was so hard that she couldn't scratch it, let alone poke a hole in it. She was being tantalized by a goal so near yet so far. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked Nada.
"I knew there was a challenge here, but not its nature," Nada confessed. "I don't know anything about wax."
It figured. The Companion's job was to get the Player safely to the challenges, but not to solve them. So Nada had braced Anathe when it seemed that the woman was interfering with Kim, but was no help in fathoming this riddle.
"Do you have any idea, Bubbles?" Kim asked.
The dog wagged her tail and started sniffing the waxed surface. Kim wasn't sure that Bubbles had really understood her question, but the dog obviously wanted to be helpful.
In a moment Bubbles stopped. She had found something. Kim checked, and saw a tiny hole in the wax. Maybe she could get her finger into it and pull the wax up, making an access to the water.
But her finger wouldn't fit; the hole was too small. And anyway, the wax was so strong that she would need a keyhole saw to cut through it, and of course Xanth didn't have such machines. So what good was the hole?
Then she considered the key again. It was just small enough to fit through that hole. But if she put it through there, she would just lose it in the lake, being unable to retrieve it. That seemed even more pointless than her other options.
But this was the game. There had to be a way. She just had to figure it out.
Kim strained her brain, but could not squeeze out any useful notion. The key was here, the lock was there, and never the twain could meet, it seemed. Unless—
The light of an idea flashed over her head again, but dimly, because she wasn't sure she had the right clue. It was only half a flash, really. She had played with a puzzle in a book once, in which a string passed through small holes, and something had to be transferred from one loop to another, when it was too big to fit through the holes. The trick had been to manipulate the string, passing it around the object and through the holes, until the puzzle could be solved. Here she had a key, and a keyhole, and a small hole leading to the wrong place; was there a way to get the key to the keyhole indirectly? She didn't have any string, and string wouldn't do the job anyway, but maybe the principle applied.
She lay down on the wax and peered through it, studying the situation. Now she saw that there were a number of bugs running around on the bottom of the lake. They looked like ticks, the kind that had to be kept off people and dogs, but these had to be water bugs, or at least capable of living in water. There were letters of the alphabet on their backs, identifying them. They didn't seem to be doing anything, just moving back and forth in semicircular paths, as if they were pendulums. All of them faced the same way, as if they had fled from the locked portal. When they moved, they didn't turn left or right; they skittered sideways, maintaining their orientation. Every time they reached the end of a semicircle, they clicked. Click-click. That struck Kim as odd behavior, even for such odd creatures.
Pendulums. Clicks. As in big clocks. Making ticks and tocks. So they were ticks, Xanth-style. Kim had read how the Good Magician Humfrey in his youthful days had lived on a tick farm, growing ticks for clocks, and had a real problem when the ticks mutated and made mischief. She remembered how aggravating the cri-tic had been. Could it be that some of those errant ticks never had been run down, and here they were? Just waiting to accomplish something?
The other half of her idea flashed. Maybe she could get them to move the key for her! To take it to the lock she couldn't reach. If only she could figure out how to do it.
She held the key in her hand. Suppose she dropped it through the hole, and simply asked the ticks to move it for her? But why would they bother, even if they understood what she wanted? She had to have some way to encourage them. And there had to be a way, because this was the game.
If they were ticks, where were the tocks? All the bugs were the same; there didn't seem to be any tocks. Where did the tocks come from? She hadn't read of any lock farm. Actually, in a clock, a tock was just the other side of a tick. So were tocks really ticks turned over? If so, there were really tocks as well as ticks.
This was crazy, but maybe it made punnish sense: ticks might not help her, but tocks might. If she could just get them to turn over. The ticks were all facing away from the portal and its keyhole, but tocks might face toward it. So maybe they could take the key th
e right way.
What could she lose? Kim put the key to the hole in the wax. It dropped through and plinked on the floor of the pool.
Immediately the ticks changed their behavior. They stopped swinging aimlessly, and started advancing on the key. But Kim realized that they would push it the wrong way, away from the lock. She needed tocks to push it the right way.
"Tick-lock!" she cried. But the ticks ignored her.
She realized that nobody would respond to a general call. If someone called "People-smeople!" she would ignore him too. But if someone called her by name or description, she would react.
"Fran-tic!" she called. No tick responded. "Fantas-tic!" Still nothing. "Gigan-tic!" The ticks continued toward the key, and the first one was beginning to push the key off toward a trench Kim now saw some distance beyond. If it fell in there, it would never be recovered!
She was getting nowhere, and she couldn't remember any more of the ticks she had read about. Then she realized that she had it backward: Humfrey had dealt with all those ticks. She had to address those ticks that had escaped his notice.
She strained her brain. She saw a tick that was somewhat dusky, as if spoiled. Its letter was N. "Necro-tic!" she cried.
The tick paused. She had identified it!
"Necro-toc!" she said. And the tick turned around and faced the other way. She had done it!
"Necro-toc, push the key!" she called.
The tock skittered sideways and reached the key. It made little clocks, rather than clicks, as it moved. It braced its head against the key and pushed. The key moved toward the lock. Kim had found out how to do it. She would get a lick at the lock.
But other ticks were coming to push the other way. One got placed squarely before the key, and it came to a halt. Then a second tick lined up before the first, and the key began to slide back.
Kim saw that one of the ticks seemed a bit doubtful. Its letter was A. "Agnos-tic" she cried, and it paused.
"Agnos-toc. Push the other way!"
The tick turned around and pushed from the other direction. Now it was two to one, and the key resumed motion toward the lock. It was getting close. "Go, go, go!" Kim whispered fervently, urging her team on.
But another tick crowded into the space left by the Agnos-toc, and pushed the other way. So it was two to two, and the key stopped moving again. Then a third tick arrived, making it three to two, and the key started moving away again.
The third tick was not very active itself, but it seemed to stir the other two up, and they pushed harder. Its letter was C. Suddenly Kim recognized it.
"Cataly-tic!" she cried, and it paused. "Cataly-toc!" It turned around. "Push the key." It pushed.
Now the Necro and Agnos tocks were revitalized, becoming very active. The key moved so rapidly that the other ticks could not catch it, and at least it reached the keyhole of the lock. They pushed it in, and then pushed it around so that it turned. There was a loud clock! sound, and the C fell away, leaving the (c)lock. The lock opened.
The water swirled into it. Kim realized that it was like the lock of a canal, handling water. The water would be held there until it was moved on to the next lock.
As the water drained from the pool, the thin wax covering lost its support. It collapsed, and the three of them had to scramble to get off it before getting dunked.
The ticks and locks and fragments of wax swirled into the lock along with the water. Soon there was just a dry depression there. They walked down into it. It seemed to be nothing but a fairly level region. Where was the lostwet?
Bubbles paused to sniff something. Kim looked. It was a blinking little square or oblong, so small Kim would not have seen it if the dog had not called her attention to it.
She picked it up. It seemed to have no mass; it was just a tiny manifestation she could balance on the tip of her finger. What could it be?
Then she understood. "It's a cursor!" she cried. "We had to get rid of the water—to get the wet lost—in order to get it. It's the cursor that made the foundry and then got lost in the wet. With this we should be able to reverse the damage it did."
Both Nada and Bubbles looked doubtful, but neither argued. Kim marched out of the lost pool and back onto the lost wax trail, balancing the blinking thing on her finger. They followed.
She reached the place where the centaurs had foundered. "I got it! I got it!" Kim cried, brandishing her blinking finger.
Heads turned to look at her. The male centaurs frowned. The females blushed. What was the matter with them? Centaurs were notoriously unflappable.
Then Kim realized what was wrong. She seemed to be making a signal with her finger. It might not have the same meaning in Xanth as it did in Mundania, but it could hardly be considered polite.
She straightened out her other fingers. "I have the cursor," she explained. "The one to nullify the curse, I think."
"Of course," the nearest centaur replied. "Put it on the foundry."
Kim walked on to the foundry. As she got closer, her feet started to hurt. Her shoes felt too tight. She wanted to get the weight off. But she knew what it was: she was foundering. All she had to do was nullify the curse, and it would go away. So she gritted her teeth and walked on.
The pain got worse, until it felt as if she were walking on acid-soaked pincushions. She couldn't stand it any more. She had to stop.
But now she was close to the foundry. She held up her finger. "Take this!" she cried, jabbing it toward the building. The cursor flew off and struck the foundry wall.
There was a flash. Kim blinked with the brightness of it. As her eyes cleared, she saw that the building had changed. Now it was the Centaur Vention Center. She had done it!
The centaurs got up and trotted in. "Now we shall give you and your Companion your ride to the Good Magician's castle."
"Thank you," Kim said, gratified. She knew she had managed to win another challenge.
Chapter 14
TALENTS
Dug ran after Jenny, who was running after Sammy, while Sherlock followed them all. Jenny knew enough to hold on to Sammy when telling him to find something, but she kept forgetting. She was after all a child, Dug remembered; he had to make allowances. Certainly her little cat's talent was useful.
The trouble was that the paths the little cat took were not necessarily suitable for people. They soon got tangled in brambles, burrs, and thistles. "Stop, Sammy!" Jenny cried. "We can't keep up with you!"
The cat stopped. Jenny picked him up. She was about to ask him to pick out an easy and safe path for them to follow, when she paused.
Dug and Sherlock were pausing too. They had blundered into an odd section of the forest. It wasn't that the trees were different, just that their arrangement was odd. Instead of being randomly scattered, they were growing in lines and curves, as if part of some huge ornamental garden. A garden cultivated by a giant, perhaps.
"I think we should quietly move away from here," Sherlock murmured.
Dug agreed. He did not like the look of this. He turned back the way they had come.
But there was a commotion back there. Something was following them. "Oops," Jenny said. "I think maybe we're somewhere we shouldn't be."
"My sentiment exactly," Dug said, reversing course. He led the way to the side, trying to avoid the thing behind by going at right angles to its motion. But he came up against a massive hedge of woven trees. There was no way through it, and the thorns on the trunks made it impossible to climb up and over. "In fact, I think maybe we're in another challenge." It was the last thing he wanted. He didn't care about the game at the moment; he just wanted to intercept Kim so he could warn her that she had a False Companion who would betray her at the key moment. The longer it took to catch up to her, the greater the risk of her betrayal.
He walked beside the dread hedge, seeking somewhere to hide. But the hedge curved around, herding him toward the center of the tree garden. Meanwhile the thing closed in from behind. There seemed to be no escape.
"All
right, already," Dug said. "I'll face it!" It had not been fear of bodily harm that had driven him to hide, but fear of delay. He wanted to skip the game for now, until he could warn Kim, and maybe exchange Companions back so that the liability would be his instead of hers. It was the right thing to do.
They stood and waited for the thing. And Dug was surprised again. Because it wasn't a monster, it was a pair of horses with riders. And a foal. A halfway handsome man rode the stallion, and a lovely woman rode the mare. The man wore a sword. But the oddest thing was the metal. Each horse had heavy chains wrapped around its body. What was going on here?
The man spied them. He waved. "Hi, there, friends," he said in a friendly fashion. "What are you doing in the Garden of Talents? I thought it was closed to the public."
Appearances could be extremely deceptive, in Xanth. But Dug saw nothing to be gained by being too defensive. This just possibly barely might be a chance encounter. So he told the truth. "I am Dug. I am playing in a game. This is Jenny Elf, my Companion, and this is Sherlock, who is looking for a place for his Black Wave to settle in peace. We strayed in here unintentionally, and wish only to leave it behind."
“The game?" the man asked, his brow wrinkling.
"The demons are running it," Jenny explained.
The woman took an interest. "Then it must be fun." She turned to the man. "Let's learn more of this, Jordan."
The man was amenable. "Okay." He jumped down from his horse, while the woman floated down. He strode forward. "I'm Jordan the Barbarian. My talent is to heal quickly. This is my wife, Renee. Or Threnody, if you like that better. She's half demon. These are our friends the ghost horses: Pook, Peek, and Puck." The stallion, mare, and foal nodded their heads in turn when named, showing that they understood human dialogue.
"Oh, I know of you," Jenny said. "I learned about it in centaur school. You came from more than four hundred years ago, in Xanth's history, and met Threnody—"
"In the year 677," Threnody said. "We had a small misunderstanding, but later we got together again."