Cube Route

by Piers Anthony

  They did encounter other reversals, which they nullified as soon as they understood them, and marked their territories. One section made a smart person stupid, and vice versa; another made nice folk mean, and the opposite; another made happy folk depressed, and the other way around. Strong-weak, big-small, fat-thin, honest-dishonest, healthy-sickly. Most of the effects were moderate, because the members of the exploratory party were in the middle range of most things, but they were able to tell by the shifts in their members. They landed at each site, analyzed them, and Cube made a note. Then they retreated to sidestepping to nullify the change, and emerged to fly on to the next. Thus they were generally affected by one reversal, but not by the prior ones.

  Even so, some of the reversals were startling. At one site the people started quarreling violently. Cube felt it too; she hated all the Companions. But she realized that this was not natural. "Our feelings are changed," she said. "Friends have become enemies."

  They hastily returned to the sidestepping aisle, and were friends again. Judging by the power of their mutual dislike before, they had to be excellent friends now.

  But there was worse. On another site Cube felt a strange change in her body. She looked around, and found herself surrounded mostly by men, including one floating demon. There was just one woman, a rather pretty one. "Ryver!" she exclaimed. "You're a woman!"

  "And you're a man," he/she retorted.

  Cube looked at herself. She was male. They had all changed gender.

  "You know, you're not bad looking as a man," the male centaur said. "Evenness and delicacy of feature doesn't matter as much for a man."

  "I don't want to be a man!" Cube said.

  The others laughed. They understood perfectly. They retreated again to the aisle and were restored. Drek had become a female dragon, but the genders of dragons weren't as obvious to human folk.

  "But there may be some folk in Xanth who do want such a change," Metria said.

  Cube marked the spot on her map. "They are welcome."

  Another change was trickier to fathom. The humans didn't change, but there was a fine male centaur who wasn't Karia. "Who are you?" Cube asked.

  "I am Kerd," he replied.

  That would be Drek, backwards. He had changed form. "Then who is the dragon?"

  "She is Airak," the centaur said. "Oops." For the dragon was drifting away. He ran after her. "Snap out of it, female," he said.

  That was Karia all right; she had been carried away at the sound of her name.

  "I apologize, gourd style," Drek said. He caught her serpentine head in his hands and kissed her snoot.

  "That's how they do it, in the gourd," Metria explained, spying Cube's blank look. Metria now appeared to be a mortal human being--and Ryver was a demon.

  They returned to the aisle. "Thank you for rescuing me," Karia said to Drek. "Perhaps someday I'll return the favor."

  "But what was the reversal?" Cube asked, still somewhat mystified.

  "I believe it is that different creatures exchange forms, not genders, with those they happen to be closest to at the moment," Metria said. "I was next to Ryver, so we switched. Karia and Drek were close. The rest of you were all humans, so the change didn't make any difference."

  "This is remarkable," Cube said, her appreciation of the wonders of this realm growing.

  At another spot, good became evil. Cube brought out the Hell Toupee and became good again; its effect reversed also. That made it potentially very useful.

  As the day faded, it seemed they had done enough. "We know the general nature of this land," Karia said. "We can continue mapping it in the future, but probably it is time to wrap up here and return to Xanth for the night." The others agreed.

  They checked one more section--and the change was dramatic. The others were suddenly staring at Cube.

  "What is it?" she asked uneasily. "Have I turned into a frog?"

  "Here is a pond," Karia said. "Look at your reflection."

  Cube did--and saw a woman who could have been Silhouette's sister in beauty. Where had she come from? She looked at the others, and saw that they had changed; Karia was now a hag of a centaur with shaggy wings, standing beside three ugly children and a homely man.

  Slowly it came to her: the lovely woman was herself.

  Amazed, she tried the only thing she could think of at the moment: she summoned a nickelpede. It was the most beautiful creature she had seen. This region really did convert ugliness to beauty, and vice versa.

  "We'll retreat to the sidestepping aisle," Karia said. "You may wish to remain here."

  Cory and Tessa set up the aisle, and the others entered it. Cube lingered, staring at her reflection. The Good Magician had said she would be beautiful when she completed her Quest; this was the proof of that. Now at last she had her desire.

  "It's true," Ryver said. "You are transformed. Now at last your appearance matches your character."

  "All I have to do is stay here," she breathed.

  "Yes. You are beautiful and I love you. But--" He shrugged.

  "But what?" she asked.

  "What would you want with me, now? I have lost my looks."

  "But I don't judge by appearance," she protested. "I know better."

  "Do you? Why were you interested in me? I'm not smart, I'm not strong, I'm not deep. My talent is way below Magician caliber. I'm just an ordinary guy. What did I have, besides my appearance?"

  Cube realized that he was right. She had been foolishly attracted to his handsome face. Now that was gone. She had objected to being judged by her appearance, but she had been doing the same. She was a hypocrite.

  "So there's no point in my staying here," Ryver said. "You can do better, now."

  Had she been in Xanth, a bulb would have flashed. But there were no punnish effects in this new land. Still, she understood that the place and time to abolish her hypocrisy was here and now.

  She brought out her water ball, which she had never forgotten. It had been her link to him. "I love you too," she said.

  "You kept the ball!"

  "Always. It was my memory of you." She put away the ball, put her hands on his arms and drew him in to her. She kissed him and let him go.

  He stood for a moment, then spoke. "In Xanth I'd be freaked out," he said. "As it is, I am merely dazzled."

  "Stay here with me, and I'll dazzle you constantly." She found that she loved having this power of beauty.

  "But I'm ugly!" he protested.

  "You're still you."

  He gazed at her with the sheer adoration reserved for sheer beauty. "You mean that?"

  "Yes. I of all people know that appearance is only one aspect of a person, and beauty fades with age. I am happy to be beautiful for you, because I want to please you. You don't have to be handsome for me."

  Still he protested. "But you know that I didn't love you until you were beautiful. I knew your qualities, but love wouldn't come before that. I'm shallow."

  "You're a man. That's not quite the same. You were upfront about that. You never deceived me. Now I have it, and I'm glad it enabled me to gain your love."

  He nodded. "I rather thought you would say that. You know I can recover my appearance by stepping into the sidestep aisle. But I can't be handsome here, where you are beautiful."

  "But since the effect is cumulative, I can go from here to another section, and suffer a change, but I'll remain beautiful. So if it is important for you to be handsome, I can join you there."

  "We'll see. But we'll both have to remain here in Counter Xanth. I don't mind, as long as I'm with you."

  But that reminded her of something else. "I can't remain here. I have to complete my Quest, establishing a safe route to this realm. I have to return the Princesses to Castle Roogna, and Drek Dragon to his home in the Purple Mountains. I can't leave the others in the lurch."

  "But you will lose your beauty if you leave."

  Cube knew it was true. She suffered a siege of grief, then marshaled her gumption. "And that means I
will lose you too. I hate that. Still, I have to do what I came to do. But at least I have had beauty and your love for this wonderful moment. That memory will last the rest of my life."

  Ryver nodded. "We will return to Xanth."

  She hoped he would ask to kiss her again, but he didn't. "Yes, we'll return and get the job finished." She hoped no tear was showing. This was one time she almost wished her gumption would fail her, but it didn't; she would do what she had to do, regardless of the cost.

  They stepped into the aisle. Cube felt the reversion as they did; her beauty was gone. "We're going back," she said. "I have to--"

  "We know," Karia said. "We've worked it out."

  "But you have spent most of the time in the pouch. How can you have the larger picture already?"

  All of them looked at her knowingly. Something was up.

  "Let me tell her," Metria said.

  "Tell me what?" Cube asked, nettled. Losing her dream was bad enough, without some other complication.

  "You put a gourd in the pouch," Metria said.

  Cube remembered. "So I did. I never had to use it."

  "But we used it."

  "How could you? You were in stasis."

  "Not quite. We were asleep. That's different. We dreamed."

  "But demons don't dream."

  "I have half a soul," the demoness said. "Now I can dream. We couldn't leave the pouch, even in our dreams, but we found we could share a dream. So we had a dialogue--a number of dialogues, actually, there in a pleasant dream setting. We compared notes, we argued points, we hashed things out. We got to know each other really well." She glanced at Karia, then at Drek, and smiled almost tenderly. "We concluded several things. One is that we like each other and want to remain as a group, even if we separate physically at times. Another is that you are a truly worthy person, and deserve your reward. We helped you get it."

  "But I can't keep my beauty," Cube said. "I've already lost it."

  "Was it really beauty you wanted--or the love of a good man?"

  Cube stood there, emotionally stunned. "The man," she confessed. "The beauty was just the means to that end."

  "Let me," Ryver said. He approached Cube, so handsome she was smitten all over again, despite cursing her own foolishness. He took her in his arms, and she yielded, loving his touch for whatever reason. He kissed her, and she felt as if she were floating.

  After a timeless time she found herself standing, recovering her speech. "You didn't have to do that. I know that--"

  "I love you," he said. "I no longer mind what you look like. Love doesn't turn off like that."

  "But--"

  "You're still you. You didn't dump me when I was ugly. Why did you think I would dump you when you lost your beauty?"

  Cube fumbled for words. "Well, men are affected by, everyone knows--a woman's appearance is all that really counts. I have to be beautiful, if--"

  "You had to be beautiful to win my love. Because of my male nature. You won it. Now it remains. Our magic talents don't change in Counter Xanth, and neither does the magic of love. And it isn't as if you won't be beautiful again. We'll return to Counter Xanth many times, and stay as long as we want, after we wrap up the Quest."

  Cube began to understand that he meant it. She gazed at the others. "You--the rest of you--knew?"

  "They knew," Ryver said. "They told me in the dream that I would never find a better woman than you, and finally I believed. I was just waiting for the beauty to clinch it. I already knew you were the one for me."

  "And you aren't the only one," Metria said. "Drek and the centaur are getting together."

  "But--"

  "We found affinity in our minds, in the dream dialogue," Karia said. "And we found that we can change our forms, in the right section of Counter Xanth, as you saw. With a little management we can both be dragons for a while, or both winged centaurs. We'll be staying there, after the quest is done, to help colonists find their way around a perplexing realm." She smiled briefly. "And nobody need know my name."

  Cube realized that that solved the problem that had originally brought Karia to the Good Magician, though not in the anticipated manner.

  "And Tessa and I will move to the Gap building," Cory said, "to be there to sidestep colonists to Counter Xanth. We have found our mission in life."

  "We'll be in touch too," Melody said.

  "We can't stay, because we're still children and Mother won't allow it," Harmony added.

  "But we'll be there when we're needed," Rhythm concluded.

  "And so will I," Metria said. "I'll pop back and forth to keep the rest of you in touch. This will be a continuing project. We have each found what we truly wanted, though not all of us understood our true desires at the outset. We have all received our rewards."

  "Your rewards?"

  "Some of us sought a useful mission in life." The demoness glanced at Cory and Tessa, then at herself. "Some sought true love with a worthy other." She glanced at Karia and Drek, then at Ryver and Cube. "Or a better understanding of the nature of magic." She glanced at the three Princesses.

  "But they are already Sorceresses," Cube said.

  "With more power of magic than we know how to control," Melody said.

  "For example, the thread," Harmony added.

  "We made it, but didn't know how it worked," Harmony concluded.

  "It led me all over Xanth!" Cube said. "Instead of straight to Counter Xanth."

  "We struggled with that for some time," Ryver said. "Finally we concluded that it was like water." He formed a water ball. Cube smiled and brought out hers again. "It forms marvelous contours, sinuous rivers, round lakes, and dramatic waterfalls, but it has no intelligence or artistic sense. It merely seeks the lowest level it can find without ever running uphill, unless there's a spell on it. The thread sought Counter Xanth, but had to align with the needs of the person it was made for."

  "That was me," Cube said. "I just wanted to go to Counter Xanth."

  He smiled at her, and she melted. "You were not ready, when you started. So it took you to the experiences you needed to become the kind of person who could handle Counter Xanth. It had no intelligence of its own, it just oriented on the need, with all the power of Sorceress magic cubed." He smiled at the Princesses, who giggled. "It was a learning route."

  "A learning route! Some of the things that happened--"

  He silenced her with a spot kiss. "For all of us. I needed to broaden my own outlook, so as not to be completely dominated by appearances. To be worthy of you. You had gumption, but lacked experience with people, so it enabled you to meet many. You needed to learn more about Mundanes, because you will be guiding some of them to Counter Xanth, so it took you to Silhouette. You needed to appreciate the role Nimby plays in Xanth, so it took you to him. You also needed experience with realms whose magic is fundamentally different from that of Xanth, so it took you to Ida's moons. When you were ready, it took you to Counter Xanth."

  Cube wanted to argue, but realized it was true. She had fleshed out considerably, in understanding and appreciation of the variety and wonder of Xanth. She was not the frustrated woman she had been. The thread had done it. "You have it all worked out," Cube said, awed.

  "We do," the demoness agreed. "You did your part; now we'll do ours."

  "But you have done yours. You all helped me get through at key spots. Karia flew me places, the Princesses made the thread, Cory and Tessa did the sidestepping, Metria helped me deal with difficult people and demons, Drek drove off attackers, Ryver--" She paused. What had Ryver done?

  Karia smiled. "Ryver found the gourd in the pouch, and used it to contact the rest of us. He made our dream dialogues possible. We would have been far less effective, otherwise, and not gotten to know each other as well."

  And they had been remarkably savvy when she brought them from the pouch. So Ryver had been a key player too. "But--"

  "Me thinks she protests too much," Karia said.

  "I'll stop it," Ryver said. He embrac
ed Cube again and kissed her. Repeatedly.

  "Show her," Metria advised him.

  "Show me what?" Cube asked, bemused.

  He took her into the pouch and showed her the dream setting that the gourd enabled. It was a lovely chamber with romantic pictures on the wall and pillows piled high on the floor. "This is now our bower of love," he said. This time he did not stop at kissing.

  By the time her wits returned, in and out of the dream, they were back in the Gap Chasm building in Xanth. She remembered none of their trip there; someone else must have carried the pouch. She was still floating on an inner sea of love.

  "There's someone at the brink," Metria said, appearing in the chamber where Ryver had been keeping Cube in chronic bliss, no longer using the dream setting. "I think you need to see to it in a hurry."

  Cube had little idea how much time had passed, but she suspected several days. The stone house had been provisioned with furniture and food and other nice things. Cory and Tessa had one room, Ryver and Cube had another, Charles Horse had a nice stone stall, and the Princesses, Karia, and Drek were gone. She hurried out and up the ramp to the surface of Xanth. Because the stone house was near the invisible bridge and the enchanted path to the north, it was easy for them to intercept travelers.

  There was a young woman. She looked extremely ill, and there was something wrong with one foot. She also looked as if she was about to jump into the Gap Chasm.

  "Hello," Cube said. "Have you lost your way? I am Cube; maybe I can help you."

  "I don't think so," the woman said. "I am Sarah Spirlock, from Mundania. I--came to Xanth because they said I could be made well by a healing elixir. But I seem to be immune to it. All I face in life is more pain. So there is nothing left but to end it quickly."

  Cube remembered the section of Counter Xanth where healthy folk became sickly, and vice versa, the most extreme cases changing the most. Here was the first colonist, who would become radiantly healthy. They would have to have her ride on Charles, because she couldn't walk along the sidestepping route, but that was easy enough. Cube remembered how dramatically Silhouette's life had changed after she had tried suicide, then gained what she needed. Cube knew exactly how to handle this; she had been there before, as it were. "Oh, Sarah, you are going to like where I will take you."