There was a knock on the door. The five, including Tata, exchanged a startled glance. Who could that possibly be?
Then Carecrow flew up to perch on the wall. She looked down outside. “No, you can’t come in,” she said. “You know that.” Then she was silent a generous moment. “Well, I’ll ask them.”
The Crow flew down inside the yard. “It’s the Lizard, only Emerald out of character. She wants to know if we can have a truce for lunch. She really doesn’t like having to chase us.”
“Why not?” Tartan asked, and Amara nodded agreement. “But I think we can’t risk actually joining her. Not as long as this awful parody continues.”
“I hate this parody,” Amara said fervently. She certainly had reason.
So they harvested several fresh pies and Carecrow tossed them down for the Lizard to eat. After lunch and rest the Lizard retreated, nominally to attend to a private function, and they were able to leave the enclosure without hazard.
They resumed their trek. Before long they spied a deep red glow ahead. It was the light of the fabled Ruby City. The houses were giant faceted rubies, and the streets were gold and silver. It was impressive.
The Yellow Tricks Road led right up to the central palace, where they were met by a humble servant. “The Whiz is expecting you. This way.”
They were ushered into a large central chamber like a mundane movie theater, with a large screen in front. On this screen played scenes of water: rushing rivers, waterfalls, fountains, geysers, surging waves, and a looming thunderstorm. Obviously the theme of the Whiz.
The screen showed a quiet, deep pool. “Who are you, and what do you want?” a man’s voice inquired.
If they were expected, why the questions? But Tartan answered. “I am Trim Woodsman, and I want a wooden heart, because I lost mine.”
“Noted. Next?”
Then Tara: “I am Carecrow, and I want to be released from this enchantment, because in real life I am a woman, not a bird.”
And Dolin: “I am the Cowardly Scion, and I want to recover my boldness.”
And finally Amara: “I am Doorthy. I want to escape being teased by the Lizard of Waz, who said only you can save me.”
Now the pictured pool formed into a face. “I can provide you with a wooden heart, Trim. I can release your enchantment, Carecrow. I can restore your boldness, Scion. And I can save you from the Lizard, Doorthy.”
He paused. They waited. Tartan knew they were on the verge of the unkind demand.
“But if you want me to do these things for you, you have to do something for me. What do you offer?”
“I will chop some wood for you,” Tartan said.
“I will do some housework for you,” Tara said.
“I will fight a monster for you,” Dolin said.
“What do you want of me?” Amara asked. This was the critical one, because she was the central figure in this sordid drama, and the prettiest girl.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What I want is the Goddess Isis with you as her host.”
So he knew about that! But how?
“For what?” Amara asked guardedly. As if she didn’t know.
“Bring her on. I want to talk to her directly.”
Amara changed, shedding the innocent Doorthy role and her natural neutrality. She stood taller, and her sex appeal smote them all, male and female. Amara was a pretty girl, but Isis was a beauty. “What do you want of me?” she asked. The words were the same as the ones Amara had used, but the implication was no longer remotely neutral. There was only one thing any man could want of her, and they all knew it.
“Half an hour of wild passion.”
There it was.
“No.”
No? How could the Goddess of Sex turn down such an engagement? The picture on the big screen became a storm that blasted rain at them so realistically that Tartan had trouble not flinching.
“Every day.”
“Make some other demand,” Isis said coldly.
“Why not? This is your nature, isn’t it? The ultimate mistress?”
“You misunderstand the term. A mistress is the plaything of a man. I am the mistress of mistresses: the governor of men. I do not seek to govern you, and you certainly shall not govern me. Neither will you govern my host, who has no interest in such passion. Give up this chase.”
There was half a pause. “You may not properly appreciate the situation, Goddess.” The storm on the screen was still intensifying.
“Acquaint me with it,” Isis said icily.
“I am the Ghost Writer. The Night Colt watches constantly, and advises me of your activities. He was watching when you manifested before. You are locked in the dream I have crafted. You can’t escape it unless I release you. I will release you and your companions only if you give me what I want. If you do not oblige me, you will remain locked in the parody forever.”
“You can’t lock me anywhere,” Isis said, and now the very air around her was precipitating sleet. “I live in the Comic Strip. I have no physical presence in Xanth proper.”
“True. But I can lock your host. You will be unable to leave your Strip even in spirit without returning to my power. If you should give up on her and seek another host, I will craft a dream to trap that new host. One way or another you will come to me. Better to do it now and do your companions some good, rather than leaving them to their fates.”
“This whole thing is merely your ridiculous story,” the Goddess said. She was now standing in a mound of fallen snow. “It has no reality other than your passing narrative. It will end soon, and your captives will be released.”
“Not so. It will end when its narrative is complete, or when I terminate it. Its narrative is far from complete. In fact it can continue for several volumes. Goddess, your friends are mine.” There was a third of a pause. “It isn’t as if I am demanding anything you can’t readily grant. Just half an hour a day. You might even enjoy it.”
“I doubt it.” The entire room had become a frozen lake. Tartan, Tara, and Dolin were hugging themselves to keep warm.
“Well, you can hold out as long as you choose. You may not suffer, but your friends are freezing.” The screen was showing a terrible winter storm. That was surely independent of the frigid region around the Goddess, which was a product of her ire.
While that dialogue occurred, Tata had been sniffing around the room. Now he caught a curtain in his metal teeth and tugged. The sheet pulled loose and dropped, and there was a man working a console.
“Ha!” Isis said.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” the voice cried. “He has nothing to do with you.”
Isis strode to the man, caught him by the back of the collar, and hauled him off his chair. “No? Then what’s this?” She jammed her fingers on the console. The winter storm dissolved into chaos. “Let’s see what work I can make of you.” She turned to face the man on the floor.
“Stop!” the man cried. “I’m not the Whiz or even the Ghost Writer. I’m just a hireling doing his business.”
The Goddess reached out to touch him on the top of the head with a finger. “It’s true,” she said, surprised.
The others plodded through the melting slush to join her. “This is all faked up?” Tartan asked.
“Just a stage set,” Tara said.
“But you are still in his power,” the man on the floor said. “He can come here physically only in the half hour before dawn or the half hour following sunset. That’s why he wants you then. But his stories govern the rest of the day. You can’t escape them.”
“We shall see about that,” Isis said. “Let’s get out of here.” She faded, leaving Amara. “I agree,” Amara said. “I’ll be bleeped if I’ll let the Ghost Writer touch me, with or without Isis’s attendance. I don’t want any man,
let alone the bleeping Ghost Writer.”
“Good girl,” Tara said.
But it occurred to Tartan that if one of them got close enough to the Ghost Writer to indulge in mad passion with him, that should also be close enough to nullify him and free Xanth of the bad dreams. Still, the others might not see it that way.
They hurried out of the palace, unopposed. There was Emerald, free of her Lizard form for the moment. Tara gladly hugged her. But the hour was late. What would happen when the Ghost Writer came on the scene personally?
“We have to find a private place and consult,” Tartan said.
“Anywhere will do,” Tara agreed, catching on.
So they stopped on the street. “Here’s the thing,” Tartan said. “The Ghost Writer works through proxies most of the day; he can’t do it directly. When the script gets messed up, as now, we’re free. But soon he’ll be here himself and straighten it out.” He turned to Amara. “If you got close enough to—”
“Forget it,” she snapped.
“Then we’ll just have to find a way to escape. How can we do that?”
“I have an idea,” Prince Dolin said. “I have no memory of my past, but I suspect it’s not from the contemporary scene. If we could go where I came from, we might be beyond the range of the Ghost Writer.”
“But if you don’t know, you can’t tell us where that is,” Amara said.
“Maybe I can, indirectly. My Aunt Mera is watching us on the mirror. I think she knows what I do not. Such as where I came from.”
“But she can’t tell you, until you find a princess to marry,” Tara said.
“True. But maybe she could tell you.”
Tara made a whistling shape with her mouth. “Aunt Mera?” she asked the air. “Can you hear me?”
“She said she could see, not hear,” Tartan said.
“Oh, yes, I forgot. I need a paper to write on.”
They looked around, but found no paper. “Will a wall do?” Emerald asked. “I passed a good one not far back.”
“Let’s see it.”
The wall turned out to be perfect. They found a stick, dipped it in dirt, and used that to write on the wall in huge letters. MERA. HELP!
“I hope she’s watching now,” Dolin said nervously. “Dusk is near.”
Indeed it was. That meant that the Ghost Writer was on his way.
Then Tara brightened. “She’s here! In spirit form.” The others saw nothing, but weren’t concerned. Tara was a ghost here, though occupying a host body, and she could pick up on another ghost. Then she spoke to Mera. “We need to escape to where you folk came from, beyond the reach of the Ghost Writer. Now. It’s important.” She was silent a moment. “Oh, my!” Then: “Gather round me; she has a spell to take us there. But it’s complicated. There’s stuff I can’t tell Prince Dolin, so I can’t speak it aloud. It’s amazing.”
They gathered around her. “Everyone must be touching,” she said. “It’s a time transport spell, a potent one, but there’s only the one.”
“But Aunt Mera can’t do time travel,” Dolin protested.
“She made a deal with the Magician of Time,” Tara said.
“With who?” Dolin asked. “I know of no such character in this episode.”
“You don’t know, but I do,” Tara said impatiently. “She traded to get a Time Bomb. Now get with it while we still can.”
It did seem best to follow her script before the Ghost Writer caught up with them. They linked hands, making a circle of five, with Tata in the center.
“Now,” Tara said.
Then things changed.
Chapter 8
Sorceress Tapis
They arrived in a pleasant walled garden: Tartan, Tara, Dolin, Emerald, and Amara, together with Tata dogfish. There were assorted pie plants, milkweeds, breadfruit trees, shoe trees, pillow plants, and clothing trees, surrounded by colorful flowers. This was obviously a small personal plantation, the kind that a well-appointed household would have so that far-flung foraging would not be necessary.
Tata woofed.
“He smells something,” Amara said. They were no longer in the Land of Waz parody, but the dog continued to stick close to her. Evidently he was an independent creature, just as they were, caught up in the narrative they had escaped. “I can tell.”
“Fancy that,” Emerald murmured, not in a critical way. The two young women got along well, maybe in part because of their mutual disinterest in romancing any man, and Dolin got along with them both, having satisfied them that he did not have romantic designs on either.
Tata walked along a small path between flowers, sniffing something out.
“I heard something.” It was a thirteen-year-old girl. “Oh! A dogfish! And people!”
Amara took charge. “Please excuse us, miss. We seem to have barged into your garden. We apologize.”
“Oh, it’s not my garden,” the girl said. “It’s Mera’s garden. I merely help out. I came to harvest some fresh pies for dinner, and here you all are.”
“Whose garden?” Dolin asked. He seemed taken aback.
Then Tartan caught on. Dolin’s aunt was named Mera. The coincidence had evidently set him back.
“Princess Merari,” the girl said. “Princess Taplin’s younger sister.”
Dolin seemed to be taken aback another step. His mother’s name was Princess Taplin.
Amara clearly picked up on the coincidence. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves, before we go on our way and leave you alone. I am Amara, an ordinary young woman. This is Prince Dolin. And Princess Emerald. And Tartan and Tara, from Mundania. And Tata Dogfish.”
“Oh, he’s so cute,” the girl said, reaching down to pet Tata, who clearly liked the attention; his faceplate had a smile and his tail was wagging. “I’m Electra.”
Now the others were set back. Electra was the Princesses Dawn and Eve’s forty-six-year-old mother. This child had the same name? Coincidence was being stretched to the breaking point.
Amara come to the rescue again. “Please, Electra, can you tell us what year this is?”
“Why 237, of course. How could anyone forget that?”
How indeed. This was it seemed the time that princess Mera came from, and Electra, that Mera’s spell had returned them to. Electra was indeed a child. Amara looked questioningly at the others. “What’s the right thing to do, Prince?” she asked.
“Tell her when we came from,” Dolin said promptly.
“We are from your far future,” Amara said carefully. “The year 1117.”
Electra tittered. “The future doesn’t exist yet!”
She was right, yet also wrong. “Perhaps we should talk to—to Princess Mera,” Dolin said diplomatically. His aunt.
“Sure. She’s setting the table for dinner. Right this way.”
They followed her out of the garden and into a pleasant mansion. Well, it was the abode of a princess; they tended to run to mansions. “Mera!” Electra called. “Visitors!”
“Oh? Who?” a melodious voice called back from another room.
“Amara and Tata and their friends,” Electra called back.
Then Mera appeared in the doorway. Tartan had expected her to look exactly like the Mera they had met at the Good Magician’s castle, by no coincidence. But this was a different girl, a magnitude prettier. Her hair was golden glory, and her figure flirted with absolute perfection.
“Five!” she said, surprised. “I’ll have to reset the table. There are only three places now.”
“Please, we did not come to impose on your hospitality,” Dolin said. “We merely wish to clarify our situation.” He seemed unstunned by her beauty. After half a moment Tartan realized why: he knew her as his aunt. Aunts were not stunning, by definition.
“Two of them are royal,” Electra stage whispered to Mera.
; “Then we really must fete them according to their stations,” Mera said. “I will reset the table.” She disappeared.
The others looked at Dolin. He shrugged. “It is right,” he murmured.
“But we’re hardly in fit condition for a royal meeting,” Amara said, glancing down at her mussed dress.
“This way,” Electra said, and showed them to a palatial lavatory. “There are several chambers, so you can have privacy. Emerge when you are ready. Meanwhile I’ll feed Tata.” She departed, and the dogfish happily followed her.
“It seems we’re committed,” Emerald said. “We probably shouldn’t have mentioned royalty.”
“My fault,” Amara said, flustered. “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“No fault,” Dolin said. “It was proper.”
“I don’t want to poop the party,” Tara said. “But that is not the girl we met in our time. She is absolutely lovely, but I fear you misremember her.”
Dolin smiled. “I assure you, that is my Aunt Mera. I know her well. It is that she is now in her own body.”
“Oh, of course,” Tara said, embarrassed.
“The original,” Tartan said. “She practically shines, even when she’s not trying.”
“She does,” Dolin agreed. “She is prettier than Mother Taplin. Of course she’s less than half Mother’s age, in the future venue. Mother was surely beautiful in her day. They are only two years apart, here.”
“You seem to know a lot, Prince,” Amara said. “Has your memory returned?”
“By no means. Only that portion relating to her, and that remains incomplete. My memory returns only when specifically addressed by events or special people.”
They completed their toiletries and were ready when Electra and Tata returned. The dogfish greeted Amara like a long-lost friend. Soon they were seated around a table set for eight. “But I shouldn’t be here,” Electra protested, looking at the eighth plate. “I’m the servant, not a guest.”
A regal older woman appeared. “Stay, Electra. I have a premonition that you are important to this dialogue.”
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