Knot Gneiss

by Piers Anthony

  “Take her back inside,” Gauche told Gorilla. “You can’t have her yet.”

  “But tomorrow—” Gorilla said hopefully.

  “Tomorrow we’ll all score,” the chief assured him.

  The hologram dissolved. “We’ve got trouble,” Jumper said. “I read his deeper mind. He doesn’t just want to get the Knot and keep Meryl. He wants to get our whole party.”

  “Our whole party!” Wenda exclaimed.

  “He had goblins hiding in ambush. If we had crossed today, they would have thrown a net over us all, doused us with hate elixir, and captured us individually while we fought among ourselves. Then his men would have started raping and torturing all the women of our party. You don’t want to know the details.”

  “What of the men?” Hilarion asked.

  “We are to be given to the goblinesses to play with before execution. Execution would be by dousing us both with hate elixir and locking us into a cell together. The winner lives to be doused with another captive, and so on.”

  “We can’t afford to be captured.”

  “But neither can we leave Meryl to be tortured,” Wenda said.

  “We have a day and night,” Ida reminded them. “We can fashion a plan.”

  Hilarion looked at her. “I am not sure our combination of talents will be effective in this instance.”

  “What are you talking about?” Angela demanded. “Can’t you make the goblins forget about Meryl?”

  “Not from this distance, and not in a mass,” Hilarion said. “Were I close to the chief goblin, I could make him forget her, but the others would remember. That would not be much of an improvement.”

  “Well, then maybe I should try it,” Angela said angrily. “I can fly in there at night and unbar her prison, and the two of us can fly out of there.”

  Wenda could see that Ida wanted to agree, but couldn’t manage it. The angel would most likely be caught and cruelly ravished. Gauche had already eyed her panties.

  But that gave Wenda an idea. “Jumper could dew it. He could assume the form of Gauche, and say he’s taking Meryl for fell purposes, then lead her out.”

  “Fatal flaw,” Hilarion said. “What would the real Gauche be doing while Jumper was emulating him?”

  Ouch. He was right. Something had to be done about the real chief goblin.

  “I know!” Angela said. “I could go and distract him so he wouldn’t be checking on anything else.”

  “Another flaw,” Hilarion said. “No angel could do what that miscreant would require. Only a demoness could do that.”

  “We have reverse wood,” Angela said. “I could use it to reverse my nature and become a demoness.”

  “And forever soil yourself, if you even survived his degradations,” Hilarion said.

  “Better that, than to let Meryl suffer.”

  The angel was demonstrating her friendship and loyalty. But the thought of subjecting her to that session with Gauche appalled Wenda, and she was sure the others liked it no better.

  “Yet it might work,” Ida agreed reluctantly.

  “Yes, it might,” Wenda agreed. “I will dew it.”

  Hilarion turned to her with much the same concern as he had for Angela. “This is not a thing to inflict on any damsel. It is likely death and sure degradation.”

  “You and your d*mned gallantry!” Angela flared.

  “The safety of the members of my Quest is my responsibility,” Wenda said. “I will dew it.”

  “Wenda, please,” Jumper said, pained. “I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”

  She appreciated his concern, but had little patience with it at the moment. “Then figure out a way for me to avoid getting hurt.”

  A bulb flashed over Ida’s head. “Reverse wood!”

  The others looked at her, not seeing it.

  “We have all kinds,” Ida said. “And only Wenda is immune, at least as far as the chips are concerned. She could do it.”

  “Please explain,” Hilarion said.

  Ida explained. And before long they had a plan. It was daring and chancy, but had a fair chance of working.

  Jumper checked on Meryl, and made the hologram of her surroundings. She was now in a much nicer suite, with a roommate/guard: Gossamer Gobliness, delicately lovely in the manner of her gender. They were playing card games. It seemed that the goblins were honoring the delay. But that did not mean that Gauche had relented; the torture would commence on schedule.

  Jumper picked up on something else in the chief’s foul mind: “He expects us to raid at night. Guards are lurking to capture us when we do. Then they will cross to the island and capture the Knot. They are just pretending to be unaware. It’s all part of their plan.”

  Wenda winced. They could not afford to forget for a moment that they were dealing with dangerously cunning little monsters. But they were going to raid, regardless. Just not quite in the expected manner.

  They waited until nightfall, meanwhile organizing their camp, foraging for pies on the island, and locating a small spring that was not hate elixir.

  And the nuptial party came. Well, why not? If Wenda was going to risk her life soon, it was better to let Charming know now.

  The others felt the same way. Each explained to the spouse or equivalent.

  “If you are wiped out, what will become of me?” Charming asked, worried.

  “If Wenda loses, you will take her place?” Beauregard asked Angela, not at all easy about it.

  “You are invulnerable,” Eris reminded Jumper. “But I may have forgotten to tell you that the talents I lent you are limited. If you use them too often, they will expire.”

  “Expire!” Jumper exclaimed. “I had no idea!”

  “It’s in the fine print of the Demon Protocols. We can’t give too much to mortals. It might give them delusions of significance.”

  He considered. “I’ll have to use one shape-change tonight, and limit it to that. And be far less free hereafter, saving my talent for an emergency.”

  “That makes sense,” Eris agreed. Then she kissed him, and Beauregard kissed Angela, and Charming kissed Wenda’s left ear as she unobtrusively turned her back. Six and a half minutes later the visitors were gone.

  Wenda, Jumper, and Hilarion paddled the air boat across the lake, while Angela hovered above, serving as liaison. Ida remained with the Knot to make sure no goblins sneaked across to the island to steal it. If she had to, she would invoke the humidor and push the wagon through, rather than allow the goblins to get the Knot.

  They landed, and walked boldly toward the goblin hill. Soon the goblin guard spied them. “Halt! What simpleton goes there?” he demanded.

  Hilarion focused on him, and in half a moment the sentry forgot that he had seen anything. They walked on.

  “I will go first,” Wenda whispered. Coordination was essential.

  “I will go second,” Jumper agreed. He changed form, assuming the likeness of Gauche Goblin.

  “I will wait here, and be ready to make any pursuers forget,” Hilarion said.

  “I will hover here and watch,” Angela said. “And flee to tell Ida if anything goes wrong.” She shuddered prettily.

  Wenda donned a white scarf to signal truce, girded her hollow loin, and marched to the main entrance. A goblin guard oriented on her, but he was in sight of Hilarion, and immediately lost his memory of her. She walked on in, unchallenged.

  Now she was on her own. She followed the twisted passages toward where she knew the chief’s chambers to be. Jumper had identified it from the awareness of the goblins, and Wenda had rehearsed the route. The passage was lighted by guttering torches, and was high enough so that she did not have to stoop, though she was taller than any goblin.

  “Hey, nymph!” a goblin challenged her. “You’re an outsider!”

  “Hey yewrself, snot for brains,” Wenda responded politely enough for goblin dialect. “I’m going to see Chief Gauche. Want to make something of it?”

  The chief’s name was magical in this domain.
The goblin went on, staying out of it. A goblin who messed with the chief could get hung upside down and force-fed hate elixir until he vomited it out the wrong end. Jumper had picked up the memory.

  She came to the chief’s door. She closed her hollow wooden fist and pounded on the door. “Open up, fecal face!” she called. “I’m here to talk to yew.”

  The door opened. There was Gauche, glowering. “Woodwife!” he exclaimed, amazed. “What the bleep are you doing here?”

  “I come under flag of truce to plead for the release of my friend the winged mermaid,” she said.

  Gauche considered. “What will you do to get her back?”

  “I thought I wood talk to yew. I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  “Come in.” He stopped back to let her in, then closed the door firmly behind her. “I never had a woodwife before.”

  Naturally there was only one thing on his evil mind. But she needed to distract him, and keep him distracted long enough for Jumper to emulate Gauche and take Meryl out to safety. She half turned so that he could focus on her full rear outlined by her tight skirt, instead of her hollow front. She was padded in front, but that would be lost the moment he tore her clothing off. “Why knot?”

  “Couldn’t catch one. They’re slippery woodland creatures.” He smiled as he scratched his rear. “But you are catchable.”

  Wenda touched her white scarf. “I am here under truce. I am knot for yewr interest.”

  “Not even to save your friend?”

  Wenda hesitated. “Knot necessarily.”

  “Enough of this bourgeois courtship! Rip off your clothes!”

  “I wood knot dew that to yew,” Wenda protested, alarmed. “It wood knot bee right.”

  “Of course not, nymph. I’m doing it to you.” He grabbed her and threw her roughly facedown on the bed. It didn’t hurt because she had no frontside to bruise. In three quarters of a moment he was on top of her, still clothed, slobbering expectantly. He caught at her skirt, trying to haul it up or down.

  “But I wood dew this to yew.” Wenda brought out the chip of reverse wood she carried. She tucked it into his boot beside her thigh, wedging against his dark ankle.

  Gauche converted to a gobliness.

  It took him a good moment and a half to catch on. He was still busy trying to get into her skirt. “What—what?” he sputtered.

  Wenda lifted him off her, as he now weighed perhaps a third what he had. “Yew are now Gaucherie Gobliness,” Wenda said. “Enjoy the condition.”

  Gauche scrambled off the bed and went to look in the wall mirror beside it. He was now a very fetching gobliness in very baggy male clothing. “Oh, horror!” he wailed.

  “But yew look quite gneiss,” Wenda said. “Yew will knot bee in want of male companionship for long.”

  “What have you done to me?” he demanded.

  “I thought that since yew like the female form so much, yew wood bee happy to have more of it.” She walked to the door. “I will leave yew to admire yourself.” She opened the door, stepped out, and closed it behind her.

  Now to rejoin Jumper. He had sent her a flash thought to let her know where he was. She hurried, knowing that there would soon be ugly chaos in the mound.

  She rounded a corner—and saw Gauche carrying a frightened Meryl over his shoulder. Then she remembered: it was Jumper, emulating the chief, and Meryl was pretending fright. This was the rescue in progress.

  Wenda stepped forward to join them. But a hulking goblin shape intercepted her. “What have we here?”

  Oh, no! It was Gorilla Goblin.

  Then a bulb went off over Wenda’s head. “Gorilla!” she said. “Go to the chief’s chamber immediately. He has a new female captive who needs breaking in. Dew knot listen to anything she says.”

  “Huh? The chief’s right here.”

  Jumper turned his head. “Get over there, poopface! I’m busy with my own captive.”

  Gorilla went.

  Wenda felt almost guilty. Yet she was sure the converted chief more than deserved what was about to happen to him.

  They moved on out. Whenever a goblin guard thought to approach, Jumper glared him back. “Mine!” he said. “Both girls mine. Wait your turn.” That was clearly persuasive.

  They forged on out of the mound. By then the goblins were developing more resistance, suspecting that the chief would not take the captives outside. But as they boiled out of the entrance, Hilarion caught them with spot forgetting. They milled about, uncertain what they had been about to do.

  Jumper lifted Meryl off his shoulder. “Fly,” he said tersely. “We’ll make our own way back.”

  Meryl flew up to join Angela, and the two headed out across the lake. Jumper, Wenda, and Hilarion strode rapidly on foot. They found the invisible air boat, jumped in, and rowed into the lake.

  The goblins swarmed to the shore. Now they were remembering, and knew that it was not really Gauche. But it was too late for them to do much about it. Some went back for weapons, but it was too late for that too.

  They had made the rescue.

  11

  TOURISTS

  They rejoined Ida on the island. “Oh, I’m so glad you are safe!” Ida exclaimed, hugging Meryl. “I’m glad too,” Meryl agreed. “I was really scared, and not because of the Knot.”

  “Now we can rest,” Wenda said, relieved. “I wood knot care to go through that again.”

  “I am not sure we should rest yet,” Ida said.

  “It has been a really hard evening,” Jumper said. “If anything had gone wrong, we would have been in serious trouble. I don’t dare depend on my special powers anymore; I need to save them for emergency use.”

  “Yes, of course,” Ida agreed. “But let me share my thoughts with you first.”

  Wenda realized that there was something on Ida’s mind, and Ida’s ideas could be serious matters. She would not inconvenience them for no reason. “Yes, please bee candid.”

  “While I was alone in the darkness I had time to think,” Ida said. “I wondered about the air boat. It was remarkably convenient, yet the goblins paid it no attention. If they have such craft, why did they not pile into others and pursue us across the water, firing their arrows?”

  “Ida, you are making sense,” Hilarion said. “Not that you don’t always. It was almost as if that boat had been placed there for our use. The goblins would never do that, unless they thought it would spring a leak and dump us in the hate elixir. But the boat is sound. It is as if the goblins are unaware of it. Considering that this is their territory, that is remarkable.”

  Ida’s voice had a smile in the darkness. “You have expressed my concern very well, Hilarion. Unexplained conveniences make me nervous; they may be like the pleasant paths leading to tangle trees. My other concern was why the goblins did not cross to the island by other means. They do have ordinary wooden boats; I saw them by the shore. Yet they made no effort to use them, despite the fact that they were eager to capture us.”

  “And they tried to trick us into crossing back, so they could capture us all,” Hilarion said. “Jumper read in their minds about that. Why should they employ such a ruse when it would be easier simply to swarm across and grab us on the island? Subtlety is not their forte.”

  “Again you have nicely amplified my concern,” Ida said. “What we have seen does not seem to make much sense. And that leaves me unsatisfied. I fear that there is something we do not understand that may be dangerous to our health.”

  “I agree emphatically,” Hilarion said. “It was very intelligent of you to come up with these aspects the rest of us overlooked.”

  “You are kind to say so.” Wenda suspected Ida was invisibly blushing.

  “These are excellent points,” Jumper agreed. “It might make sense for us to depart this island now and find somewhere else to spend the night.”

  “Readily accomplished with the air boat,” Hilarion said. “We can row away under cover of night, and be well away from the vicinity by morning.�
��

  “We can’t,” Angela said. “I have been scouting around. The goblins are really angry about our escape, and maybe about what happened to Chief Gauche.” She paused, possibly for an un-angelic smile. The chief had gotten his just desserts, before managing to lose the chip of reverse wood, and they surely had not been pleasantly tasty. “They have surrounded the entire lake. You can see their hundred torches in the evening dews and damps.”

  Wenda looked. There in a great circle was the glimmer of distant lights. The lake was indeed surrounded.

  “Can Jumper become the roc bird and carry us away by air?” Meryl asked.

  “No,” Jumper said. “I can’t safely take off by night; I need to see where I’m going. Also—” He hesitated.

  “Also, we have learned that Jumper’s borrowed talents are limited,” Wenda said. “When he uses them up, they will no longer be available. So we feel he should save them for emergencies only. If we can possibly find another escape, we must do so.”

  “Oh! I didn’t realize.”

  “None of us did,” Wenda said. “We were letting him use them wastefully. We shall bee far more careful henceforth.”

  “Which leaves us in a dill of a picklement,” Hilarion said. “We don’t want to stay here, but it seems we can’t conveniently depart. There is little to sustain us on the island; maybe the goblins expect to starve us out.”

  “Angela and I can fly in supplies,” Meryl said.

  “No,” Wenda said. “They will shoot yew down with arrows. Only Hilarion’s talent of making them forget us on a spot basis prevented them from dewing that before. That will knot work, now that they are fully alerted.”

  “Then we shall simply have to find another way,” Ida said.

  It was a long shot, but Wenda tried for it. “Meryl, yew have come up with good ideas before. Do yew have any now?”

  “Not really,” the mermaid said. “Unless there is something special about this island that we have not realized.”

  “Like maybe a secret passage that leads to somewhere safely far away,” Angela said. Wenda remembered that in Meryl’s absence, Angela had become their idea person.

  “That might be the case,” Ida agreed.