“We can help,” Hapless repeated. “We are on a Quest, and have captured the five Totems of the Regions. They have power.”
The man looked at him. “You are either more powerful than you look, or a madman.”
“We don’t have time to argue,” Feline said. “I have the Totem of Water.”
“Can you demonstrate?”
Feline held up her Totem. Water poured from it in a torrent, splashing on the ground and quickly flooding it. “More?” she inquired.
The Elder picked up his dropped jaw. “That suffices.”
The flow stopped. “Thank you,” Feline said, smiling.
“The other members of our party are two crossbreed centaurs and two crossbreed dragons,” Hapless said. “I will bring them in now so you know that they are friends, not enemies.”
“Monsters!” the Elder said fearfully.
“No. They are Companions of the Quest.”
“Monsters!” the other villagers echoed. They were so stressed that they were unable to accept the distinction. Was their irrationality going to destroy the effort, and with it their village?
Hapless got a notion. “Companions,” he repeated. “I’ll prove it. Have you ever heard of monsters playing lovely music in harmony?” Actually there were some musical monsters, but maybe the ignorant villagers did not know of them.
“Monsters aren’t musical,” the elder said. “But—”
“I’ll show you.” He conjured Feline’s kit. “Play,” he said.
She didn’t argue. She put the small violin to her chin and played a truly lovely theme. The villagers paused in their developing panic, surprised and soothed.
Hapless turned to Merge. “Please, will you go back and tell the others to come here one by one? Starting I think with Zed; he looks almost ordinary.”
“Yes, dear,” she said, and hurried off with Myst.
Dear? Why not? They were in love.
“She’s no monster,” the elder said, appreciating Feline’s music. “She’s a cute young woman.”
Hapless held up his hand in a stop signal, and Feline stopped playing. “Show them your nature, briefly,” he told her.
Feline handed him the violin, then changed to cat form. She arched her back, spat, then changed back. “I’m a crossbreed,” she explained. “But thank you for calling me cute.” Then she took back her kit and resumed playing.
The villagers, silenced, listened.
Zed trotted in, with Myst riding his back. “They call him striped meat,” she reported. “He ignored them.”
Zed could make the earth shake, literally. As the goblins might soon discover.
Hapless conjured the saxophone. Zed played it, joining Feline in a mellow harmony. The villagers listened, charmed.
“Centaurs aren’t monsters either,” the Elder said, though without his former conviction.
“None of them are monsters,” Hapless said.
Faro arrived. “Those goblins need a whole-body caustic enema,” she muttered.
Hapless conjured her drum set, and she commenced a rhythmic beat. The Elder didn’t try to protest that winged centaurs weren’t really monsters.
Next came Nya, as a naga. The villagers eyed her bare upper torso, as they had Faro’s, and did not protest. Hapless conjured her harmonica, and she joined the others in perfect harmony.
“Neither are naga,” the elder said.
Hapless stopped Nya and took her instrument. “Show them your nature, briefly.”
She changed to dragon form, then back to naga. He returned her harmonica and she resumed playing. She was definitely a monster, but the villagers were catching on.
Finally Quin arrived, in harpy/serpent form, and Hapless conjured his accordion, then had him change briefly to his steam dragon form. He was definitely a monster, but the villagers no longer were concerned. The lovely music had made its point.
They brought the piece to a neat conclusion, though they had never played this one before. Somehow the music was always right. They set down their instruments.
“They aren’t monsters,” Hapless said. “At least, not enemy monsters. They’re on your side.”
“Not monsters,” the elder agreed.
“But the real monsters are coming,” Myst said, returning from a fuzzing out. “They’re all around.”
“Get under cover, villagers,” Hapless said. “Stay close to me in the center. This may get wild.”
There was a small dais in the center circle of the village. The villagers crouched down around it. Hapless mounted it and looked around. Sure enough, he saw a contingent of flying dragons coming in from the north. “Quin, you handle those,” he said. “Blow them away.”
Quin assumed full dragon form and faced the other dragons. He opened his mouth and blew. A gale of air blasted out. It struck the dragons and knocked them literally out of the sky. They landed in a tangle on the ground.
The villagers cheered.
But the dragons weren’t done. They righted themselves and slithered along the ground toward the village, breathing fire.
Quin exhaled again, harder. The wind coursed along the ground, blowing up sand, wrenching bushes out, and sending bits of debris flying into the dragons’ snouts. Yet still they came, forging through the flak.
“I can take care of that,” Nya said.
“No, wait,” Hapless said. “This could be a diversion. We need to be ready for the others. He’s holding them back for now.”
Indeed, the very ground before the dragons was getting scooped out by the gale. They were not making any progress.
“Nickelpedes at ten o’clock,” Myst announced.
“Those are yours, Feline,” Hapless said. “Don’t let them reach the dais.”
Feline stood facing the northeast. Soon the ground before her was alive with the dread armored insects, each one capable of gouging out nickel sized chunks of flesh. Anyone stepping into that living carpet would not be worth a plugged nickel. It was flowing toward the dais.
“Any time now,” Hapless murmured, hoping that nothing had gone wrong with her Totem.
“I want to get them all committed, so they can’t retreat.”
“Uh—”
“Don’t worry,” Myst said. “Aunt Feline knows what she’s doing.”
Feline patted her on the head. “Right, dear.”
The nickelpedes swarmed right up to within a few paces of the dais. The villagers shrank back in horror.
Now at last Feline acted. A virtual wall of water washed out from her, splashing down onto the insects. They were borne away, helpless in its fierce current. It kept coming, spreading out across the area, forming a rising puddle, then a pond, then a lake. The nickelpedes didn’t have a chance; they were drowning.
“Big snake at seven o’clock,” Myst announced. She was pretty good as a spotter, thanks to her sensitivity in mist form.
Hapless looked. It was a giant land serpent, its body as thick as the height of a man. It would neither be drowned nor blown away; it was simply too big. “Nya,” Hapless said.
The naga assumed dragon form and oriented to the southwest. She looked like a toy compared to the approaching monster, but she slithered out to meet it. When they came snoot to snoot, Nya lifted up her forepart and breathed a warning wisp of fire.
The gargantuan creature looked at that and shook with laughter. Obviously a little jet of fire couldn’t hurt it.
Nya breathed out a rocket-blast of fire. That toasted the serpent’s snoot and made it draw back in surprise. But now it was annoyed. It gaped its ponderous and mottled jaws and lunged forward to take in the whole of Nya.
Nya exploded into a stellar fireball. The closing mouth was illuminated by brilliant light before it dropped to the ground as ashes. The serpent had literally lost its head.
The villagers applauded. They knew now that the rescue party was deadly serious about saving the village.
But the siege was hardly over. “Bogies at three and five o’clock,” Myst announced. “Gobli
ns and wolves.” She paused. “The Garbage Goblin tribe, I think; they’re bad. Rabid wolves, by the smell of it. Can’t let any spit touch you.”
“Zed, the goblins,” Hapless said. “Faro, the wolves.”
The centaur faced east, where the goblins were charging in, preceded by their smell. “I have heard of the Garbage Goblins,” Merge said. “They simply swarm over their opposition, reducing it to garbage. Then they fish out what they like.”
“They’ll have a problem this time,” Zed said grimly. Then the ground under the horde shook just enough to make its power felt. When they ignored that, it shook harder, and a crack opened up in their midst, swallowing more. When they still came on, a volcano formed, erupting and pouring out molten lava. The goblins were quickly buried, becoming crisps.
“You tried to warn them,” Merge said.
“I did. But it can be hard to reason with marauding goblins.”
Meanwhile the wolves were loping in, their eyes red with madness, their saliva dripping. There would be no reasoning with them either.
“I hate this,” Faro said. “Hang on, folk.” Then she lifted her Totem. It expanded into the full-sized Horn and started sucking. The suction intensified, trying to draw in the whole world, but the villagers behind it stayed low and were not moved. The wolves, however, bounded straight into it. And disappeared. They were in the Void.
It was done. The Companions eased off their totems and the tumult faded. All around the village was devastation, from flooding, lava, wind, fire, and suction. But the land would recover in time. There would be no more monsters attacking.
“Our job is done,” Hapless said, satisfied. “We shall be on our way.”
“Oh, no!” the Elder said. “You must accept our grateful hospitality tonight. You saved us from a five fold horrible fate.”
Hapless glanced around. The others nodded. “We accept,” he said.
The villagers provided them with a surprisingly capacious house. Then the villagers came one by one to thank them for saving the village and the lives of all within it. “We thought we were doomed,” one woman said. “I was ready to slit my child’s throat so she couldn’t fall into the hands of the monsters.”
Hapless knew she wasn’t exaggerating. They had been desperate, for good reason.
“We were glad to help,” Merge said. “We were lucky the dogs knew where you were.”
The Elder came. “It is time for the celebratory feast, where you will be duly feted.”
“Oh we don’t need—”
Merge put a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” she said. Then, to the others: “You just saved their lives from a terrible end. They have to honor you. Just nod and smile and it will soon be over.”
It occurred to Hapless that she was socially practiced where he was inadequate. She would make a good companion.
They followed her advice, and it worked. It wasn’t at all bad.
Then alone together in the evening, Feline told Hapless. “Call a meeting.”
“Uh?”
“Zed has thoughts.”
“Oh.”
“I have some thoughts,” Zed said. How had she known? “The Totems are amazingly potent. We had no trouble vanquishing the monsters. In fact, I believe any one of us could have done it alone. We could have flooded, burned, blown, buried, or sucked them all to oblivion.”
The others nodded agreement.
“That is what bothers me,” Zed said. “We have amassed a phenomenal amount of power. Enough, perhaps, to destroy Xanth if we put it to that fell purpose. We don’t yet know the limits of it. We might generate the storm of the century to blow away all structures, or a fire that laid all forests bare, or made an earthquake that leveled everything, or simply siphoned everyone into the Void. Power tends to corrupt. We shall need to be careful that we are not corrupted by it.”
“Good point,” Faro said. “We will need to return the Totems once we have accomplished our Quest. To give up that power before it corrupts us.”
They looked at Hapless. “Well sure,” he said. “Wasn’t that always the plan?”
They nodded as if appreciating something he did not. What was he missing this time?
“But I am thinking that we may need more practice,” Faro said. “We will be going up against the Goddess Isis, and by stray accounts she’s an imperious b—bad girl.” Had she started to say something else? “We don’t know what she will be up to. We had better be prepared for anything.”
“What are you thinking?” Zed asked her.
“That the Totems provide us with terrific physical power that I think no one could stand against, not even a goddess. So I think she would not meet us on that front. But there are other kinds of power.”
“Such as?” he prompted her, evidently having a notion. Centaurs did tend to see eye to eye on things, perhaps because their eyes were at the same level.
“Such as illusion. She might clothe herself in completely unexpected appearances, such as a sea serpent or the king of Xanth. How would we know?”
“How indeed,” Zed agreed rhetorically.
“Or she could be in a castle that turned out to be a gulf for us to fall into. With illusion you can’t be sure of anything, not even the level ground ahead of you. We might flounder around, blowing things away, burning things, flooding things that looked like enemies but were actually innocent folk. She could make utter fools of us, and our powers would be useless or counterproductive.”
Zed nodded. “And how do you propose we prepare for such a challenge?”
“We shall need to be ready for virtually anything.” Faro quirked a smile as she glanced at Hapless. “To think outside the box, perhaps.”
“In what manner?”
“There is a comic strip nearby. We might assist the villagers with their mining of puns.”
“Oh, bleep!” Nya said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t think of that.”
The others pondered the suggestion. “Those comic strips have a horrendous reputation,” Feline said.
“Folk can get sick in them, from their inversions and nonsense,” Quin said.
“In sum, a perfect challenge for our equilibrium,” Faro concluded.
Feline glanced at Hapless. “Time for you to make the decision.”
What could he do? “We’ll try it tomorrow.”
“We knew you’d come through.”
They had known he could be browbeaten into doing what they wanted. Yet it did seem to make sense. It should prepare them for their encounter with the goddess. Assuming they could be prepared.
They settled down to sleep. The two centaurs stood a bit apart, discussing Mundane Quantum Theory. Hapless couldn’t help overhearing part of it.
“It never made sense to me,” Faro said. “The idea that reality is not fixed until someone observes it. Where was the universe before anyone observed it?”
“No one ever accused the Mundanes of being unduly rational,” Zed said. “It is more devious that that. As I understand it, the universe exists in an infinite number of alternate possibilities. When we observe one, the alternates collapse into a single reality. Or it may be that at that point we recognize a single reality, abating our uncertainty. We make a snapshot, as it were, fixing it in place.”
“These are the same Mundanes who don’t believe in magic?” she asked cuttingly.
“I’m glad we live in Xanth.”
Their dialogue continued, but Hapless tuned it out. He did not have a centaur mind. He just wanted to rest.
Feline, Merge, and Myst boxed him in as usual, and he loved it as usual.
“You did well,” Feline whispered in his right ear, kissing it.
“Very well,” Merge whispered in his left ear, kissing it.
“Hey, you’re floating too high,” Myst protested. “Get back on the floor.”
They all laughed. They loved teasing him, and he loved being teased.
In the morning they went with the villagers to the nearby comic strip. It writhed and scintillated like a
living thing, which maybe it was in its fashion. As they stood beside it, almost touchingly close, color washed across the boundary wall. Letters appeared: MAKE MY DAY.
“We normally don’t enter it,” the Elder said. “We spot a likely pun, reach in, and pull it out. It’s like fishing in a violent stream.”
“We will be entering it,” Zed said. “We want to figure out how to maintain our bearings even in the midst of chaos.”
“Do not use your Totem powers,” Faro said. “That could be dangerous, as things may not be what they appear to be.”
“Myst and I will wait by the side where you enter,” Merge said. “That way you will know you have succeeded if you come out where we are.”
“We’ll know,” Hapless agreed, dry mouthed.
“We should stay together, at least the first time,” Zed said. “We can hold hands and step in, then step out again, testing the water, as it were.”
“If anyone gets separated,” Faro said. “Step out immediately.”
They linked hands in a circle of six and stepped in.
It was instant chaos. Hapless knew the others were still with him, because Feline held his right hand and Faro held his left hand. But he couldn’t see them. What he saw was a tree with extremely odd fruit: dolls with singe eyes in their foreheads. They were little Cyclopes. But where was the pun? He knew that he’d be locked into place contemplating the sight until he got the pun.
“Focus,” Feline said, squeezing his hand. “You’re the last one. We can’t move until you do.”
Then he had it. “Eye Doll a Tree! Idolatry.”
“Good enough. Now we’ll step back together to get out of the strip.”
“Just let me grab a doll for the villagers,” he said.
“No!” she cried. But she was too late; he had let go of her hand and Faro’s hand and grabbed a doll. He got it, and turned around to rejoin them.
They were gone. Too late he remembered the warning: stay linked. Now he was alone in the comic strip.
But they had to be close. He stepped toward the boundary, only there was no boundary any more. What he saw instead was a set of young dragons lining up at a line. Suddenly they were off in a cloud of alcohol fumes, racing along the track. What were they doing? He had to figure it out before he could move on. Sure he knew that young dragons, like other teens, like to race. But where was the pun? For a moment his noggin blocked up. Then it cleared: they were drag(on) racing!