“Why not?”
“Because I’m stuck here behind the loco-motive, going crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“That’s what it does to you. Didn’t you see all those other folk on this coach?”
“They look like dummies.”
“That’s because they have gone completely loco. There’s no hope for them; they’ve crashed. But I’m not completely loco yet, so there’s hope for me. That’s why I’m crying.” Her eyes began to brim again.
“I don’t understand.”
“By the time you understand, it’s probably too late. The effect builds gradually. Each lap the locomotive makes around the castle makes it worse. You’re still fresh; you’re hardly crazy at all. And I guess being close to you makes me less crazy, for a while, until we both are overwhelmed.”
Forrest was starting to catch on. “The longer we stay here, the crazier we become? Because of the locomotive?”
“Yes. I was pretty far gone, until you came in. But it won’t last.”
“Then we must get off the train before it gets us.”
“We can’t get off. Why do you think I was crying?”
“I wasn’t sure. But I hoped to help. Why can’t we get off?”
“Because it won’t stop. The windows won’t open, the doors won’t open, and even if they did, look how fast it’s going.”
He looked out the window, and saw the wall rushing by at blinding velocity. He looked across the aisle to the far windows, and saw the moat passing just as swiftly. “But it stopped for me.”
“It stops to let folk on, not to let them off.”
“Why didn’t you get off when it stopped for me?”
“I couldn’t. The seat belt held me.”
“What seat belt?” Forrest saw nothing of that kind.
“The automatic seat belt. It clasps you only when the train is stopping.”
“So if someone else wants to get on, I’ll be belted too?”
“Yes. It belts everyone, so no one will get hurt.”
“But that’s crazy!”
“Precisely.”
“Well, we’ll have to get out of our seats while it’s moving, then stop it.”
“I tried that. The coach is locked up. No way out of it. The locomotive won’t stop unless everyone is secured.”
A bulb lighted. “The Challenge! It’s to make the train stop.”
“I guess so,” Dot agreed. “But I have no idea how.”
“And if I don’t figure it out pretty quick, I’ll go crazy, and become another crash dummy.”
“That’s true.”
Forrest pondered. He was starting to feel a bit unbalanced already, and he could only have been around the bend once or twice. But there had to be a way to get off the train. He just had to figure it out. Soon.
He saw no way, offhand. The limited scenery zoomed by unabated. Even if he could manage to open a window or door, it wouldn’t be safe to jump out. He had to get the train to actually stop, without fastening him down with a seat belt. That seemed impossible.
But there did have to be a way. That was in the big book of rules, or whatever. He hoped. So what was he overlooking?
There hadn’t seemed to be much way to cross the moat, either. But he had managed to use the psychologist to change things, so that it became possible. Too bad there wasn’t another psychologist, to shrink the locomotive, until it couldn’t pull them along so fast.
Then another bulb started to light, but he managed to suppress it before the woman saw it. There was another person, and she was it. She must be the key to escape. She wasn’t a fellow trap-ee, she was part of the Challenge.
But her talent was merely spots on a wall. Very good spots, but how could spots stop a train? Unless—
“Dot, can you make a picture outside the train?”
“Well, if there’s a surface close enough.”
“Can you make a picture of a door through that wall?”
“I suppose. But the wall is moving. It would carry away my dots.”
“No, we’re moving. The wall is still.”
“Oh. I suppose that’s right.” She focused on the wall, and in a moment a picture formed. It was a door. It seemed to be right opposite their window, unmoving.
“Very good,” Forrest said. “Now can you make that door open?”
The door slowly opened, revealing a nice garden beyond.
“Now can you make a similar door in our window, and open it?”
The dots quickly formed a door, and it opened.
“Now all we have to do is go through those two doors, and we’ll be there,” he said with satisfaction.
“It won’t work,” Dot said sadly.
But he tried it anyway. He reached across her and put one hand through the nearer open door. And banged his knuckle. “Ooooh!” He brought his hand back.
“The window’s still there,” Dot explained. “So is the brick wall. So is the motion. All I do is pictures, not changes. It just looks different.” The pictures faded out.
Forrest sighed. The doors were illusion; the window and wall were reality. He should have known. It had been a rather crazy idea.
Crazy. That figured.
He sat back and pondered some more. He didn’t want any more crazy ideas, he wanted something that worked. What could he come up with, before his mind lost its common sense?
He still thought it related to Dot, and her talent. How could her talent stop the train? Not with illusion, but reality?
What he really needed was information. Like a manual of instructions, to know how to stop the train. But of course that was another crazy notion, because mere pictures couldn’t provide that.
Or could they? Maybe it was worth a try.
“Dot, just how detailed can your pictures be?”
“Infinitely detailed,” she said proudly. “I can make dots so small they can’t even be seen individually.”
“Then let’s make a special picture. Of a manual. On the cover it says LOCOMOTIVE OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS. Can you do that?”
“Sure. But that doesn’t require much detail.” The picture appeared in the window, a book with the required words.
“Very good. Now can you open it?”
The cover turned, in much the manner of another door opening, revealing the title page inside.
“Show the contents page.”
Another page turned, and CONTENTS showed.
Forrest leaned across to read it. Near the bottom of the page was a listing for Chapter 10: STOPPING. “Turn to page fifty,” he said, reading the indicated page number.
The pages flipped across, stopping at 50. But the print was too small to read. “Can you make the page larger?”
The image expanded, until it filled the whole window, and the print was legible. Forrest read it avidly: TO STOP LOCOMOTIVE IN ITS TRACKS, PULL THE CORD ABOVE THE SEAT.
He looked up. There was the cord, that he hadn’t noticed before. He reached up and pulled it.
There was a squeal as the train hurtled to a stop. Seat belts jumped out to clasp the two of them, as well as all the dummies in the rest of the coach. Oops—he had forgotten that detail.
“You did it!” Dot cried. “You stopped the train!”
“Can you show the contents page again?”
The pages turned back. He found the chapter for SEAT BELTS, and turned to that page: TO RELEASE SEAT BELT, PUSH BUTTON THEREON.
Sure enough, there was a button. He pushed it, and the belt unclasped him and disappeared on either side. Dot did the same. “You figured it out,” she said, pleased.
“Let’s get off this crazy train before it starts again,” he said, standing.
But she shook her head. “Thanks, no. This is your Challenge, not mine. My job is on this train of thought.”
He had suspected as much. “Thanks for your help, anyway.”
“It was a pleasure. You’re a nice person.”
He walked along the aisle to the end of the coach, where the door
had folded down into steps. He stepped down and off. As soon as he did, the steps folded up again, sealing the train, and it started moving again.
“Well, I guess you got through that one,” D. Sire said, fading into view.
“You can go any time, demoness.”
He waited while the train rolled out of the way. Beyond the tracks was an open door in the wall just like the one Dot had pictured. He crossed the tracks and put out a cautious hand, just in case the doorway wasn’t real. His hand didn’t bang. He stepped through. He had won the second Challenge.
Suddenly he was horribly frightened. He reeled, staggering back through the door. His fear abated.
What had happened? He hadn’t seen any monster or hurtling locomotive or anything; why had he been so suddenly and awfully afraid?
“I think you have a problem, faun.” Sire faded out, satisfied.
He stepped forward again—and was blasted by the fear. He reeled back again, out the doorway. It was this place: he was afraid to enter it. But he had to enter it, because it was the only entrance to the castle he had found.
He stepped close to the entrance, stopping just short of the fear, and peered in. There was a small man, or maybe an elf, or maybe in between. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I am LA, the lost angel. I am here to help you enter the castle. But first you must conquer your foolish fear.”
So it was the third Challenge. All he had to do was nerve himself and go on through. It seemed simple enough. After all, LA didn’t seem to be afraid, so probably there was nothing to fear.
He tried again, and was balked again. There was nothing to fear except fear itself! He couldn’t enter that chamber.
He pondered. The chamber itself must be imbued with fear, so that anyone who entered it was terrified. But then why wasn’t the lost angel afraid too? Was there some secret way to nullify the fear? No, probably there was a special anti-fear spell on LA, so that he was immune. It wouldn’t make sense to have the folk helping the Good Magician be afraid to do their duties.
In each case before there had been a barrier or threat of some kind, and a person of some type, and the person had been the key to the solution. Could this be the case again? He thought it would make more sense to have something entirely different, but he wasn’t the Good Magician, and didn’t know how the old man thought. So maybe there was a pattern, and the person would have the answer. But not anything obvious.
What would a lost angel have to do with fear? Maybe angels were beyond fear, so that was how he was able to be in that dread chamber. But Forrest was no angel, so he needed something else. Still, maybe he could talk to LA and learn something, as he had with the other two.
He looked in. LA was just sitting there, completely at ease. “I gather that there is a way for me to eliminate my fear, and that you know of it, but won’t tell me,” he said.
LA nodded. “You seem reasonably smart, for a faun.”
“Not everyone considers me so,” Forrest said. “I met a damsel and a dragon, and I think the damsel liked me, but thought I was a bit dull.”
“Beauty is often in the eye of the beholder.”
“She was extremely beautiful, so I must have been dull in contrast.” Forrest considered how to proceed. “Do you have a magic talent?”
“Why yes. I can change one kind of wood to another kind of wood. Unfortunately there is no wood here, so I can’t show you.”
Something nagged at Forrest’s mind, but he couldn’t place it. So he talked some more, hoping to learn something useful. “You came to ask the Good Magician a Question, and he gave you his Answer, and now you are serving your years’s Service for him?”
“Exactly.”
“If it is not too personal, what was your Question?”
“It’s not personal at all. It wasn’t a Question, it was a request. I asked that a significant village be named after me. He told me that one already was, but that it was in Mundania. I suppose that’s better than nothing.”
“And for this you are glad to serve for a year?”
“It does seem inadequate. But that’s what I get for wanting something stupid. I am learning a whole lot during this Service, and will depart here a much wiser creature. If I had known how it would be, I would have dispensed with the Question, and simply come for the Service.”
That surprised Forrest. “Is it the same with Dot, and the psychologist?”
“Certainly. And for the mer-dragon too. And maybe for you, if you manage to get through.”
“The damsel said he would not require a Service of me.”
Now LA was surprised. “I find that hard to believe. He always requires a Service. It’s his way of discouraging folk who aren’t serious, just as is this business of three Challenges. Why should you be an exception?”
“I have no idea. Maybe it’s not true.”
“Who was this damsel?”
“She called herself Chlorine. She said her talent was poisoning water. She rode a funny looking dragon.”
“Ah, the dragon ass. I have heard of him. They are an odd couple. Well, maybe they know what they are doing. I have heard that good things tend to happen when they are around, as if they somehow reverse the normal perversity of fate.”
Reverse perversity? Then, for no reason, Forrest got a notion. Reverse wood! Could that reverse the fright spell on the chamber? Of course he didn’t have any reverse wood, but if LA cared to cooperate, he could get some.
“Will you do me a favor?” he asked the lost angel.
“Within reason. What do you want?”
“I would like you to change some wood for me.”
“I’d be glad to. But I don’t have any wood.”
“But I do.” Forrest removed one of his sandals. “Will you change this sandalwood to reverse wood?”
LA smiled. “You are a clever one! Very well: bring it here.”
Forrest started to walk into the chamber—and was immediately beaten back by utter fear. Oh, no—he couldn’t do what he wanted, because of the thing he wanted to eliminate.
But then he found a way. “I will toss it to you.”
He threw the sandal. LA caught it and held it. “Are you sure you want me to do this? There may be consequences.”
“I’ll risk them. Change it to reverse wood.”
“Very well. Done.”
The sandal looked the same, but when Forrest tried to enter the room, he had no trouble. In fact he was drawn into it, delighting in its ambiance. Not only did he feel no fear, he felt absolutely fearless.
“Thank you,” he said to the lost angel. “That worked perfectly.”
“Did it?”
“Sure. My fear is gone. I’m having absolutely no trouble with this chamber. In fact I could stay here forever.”
“That’s nice.” But LA seemed oddly subdued.
“Well, I must move on into the castle proper. But I’ll need my sandal. Please change it back to sandalwood now.”
“I can’t do that.”
“But you changed it before. Why can’t you do it again?” “Because the reverse wood reverses my talent. Now I can’t change anything.”
Forrest paused. The angel had warned him that there might be consequences. He hadn’t paid enough attention.
“Maybe I can use it anyway,” he said. “Let me put it on.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I don’t have any magical talent. I’m a faun. So it can’t reverse it. If I take it away from you, your own talent should revert to normal, so you’ll be okay. And who knows—maybe I’ll find some future use for reverse wood. So, yes, this seems the best way.”
LA gave him the sandal, and he put it on. But he felt suddenly quite odd. His hair seemed longer than usual, and his body felt different. His feet felt oddest of all. What was the matter?
He looked down, and saw his legs and feet. He stared. They were human! They had five toes, and were fleshy, with solid heels.
Then he traced th
e lines of his legs upward. They were human, with far more flesh than his goat legs ever had had, and got really fleshy near the tops. And above that—
“Oh, my,” he breathed, appalled. “I’m a nymph!”
“It seems that the reverse wood reversed your nature,” LA said. “You are now a fine looking female.”
“But I don’t want to be a nymph!” he (she) protested.
“Then take off the sandal.”
That made sense. He tore off the sandal, threw it across the room, and felt his body reverting to normal. He was himself again.
“I guess I’ll have to do without the sandal,” he said. “I’ll use my spare pair.” He removed the other sandal, put it in his knapsack, drew out the other pair, and put them on.
“You may still have a problem,” LA remarked.
“Not if I stay well clear of that reverse wood. I’ll just step on into the main castle, leaving it behind.” He paused. “Unless it makes things too difficult for you.”
“Have no concern about me. I’m here for the duration, regardless. My job is here; I’m a prisoner of this chamber. Your visit has helped relieve the boredom.”
“Okay. Then I guess it’s farewell, and thank you.” Forrest walked to the doorway into the rest of the castle.
But as he passed through it, sudden terror gripped him. He reeled back into the chamber, and the fear faded.
Then he realized what had happened. “The spell is reversed. Now the chamber is fine, but I’m afraid to leave it.”
“I know the feeling,” LA said.
“But how can I see the Good Magician, if I can’t leave the room, and you can’t change the reverse wood?”
“It is a question.”
A question he had to answer for himself. So he walked around the chamber, pondering hard.
“What, stuck again?” D. Sire inquired mockingly from the doorway leading out to the tracks and moat.
He had had enough. He ran to the reverse wood sandal, picked it up, and hurled it at her. In the course of that action he felt himself changing, and changing back.
The wood passed right through her. “Oooh, that smarts,” she cried, flapping her hands to bow the smoke away from a sandal-shaped hole in her mid-section.
The sandal splashed into the water of the moat beyond her. The water shuddered and turned to fire. There was a scream of outrage from the moat monster, who must have had to scramble to land. A little reverse wood in the wrong place could be a lot of mischief.
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