Golem in the Gears

by Piers Anthony

  Indeed, the allegory was now swimming toward Jordan, climbing out on the muddy bank. But the barbarian simply drew his sword and braced himself, and the green monster changed its mind. It turned on fat little legs and returned to the shallow water. It seemed that not too many creatures cared to tangle with a barbarian warrior who was looking for a fight.

  They snacked on the remnants of the prior day’s feast, while the sphinx cruised on. Threnody was surely getting hungry, but she didn’t complain; she probably wanted to get them all safely across this blank region before changing back to human form.

  But the Glades went on and on, endlessly. Afternoon came, and then evening, and nothing seemed to have changed. “At this velocity, we should have been there by now,” Rapunzel said, worried.

  Now the sphinx paused. “I just remembered something,” she said. “Sphinxes have excellent memories! The Glades are magic. They go on forever. That’s why they are called ‘Ever-Glades.’ ”

  “Forever?” Grundy asked, horrified. “But then how do we get across them?”

  “This is the kind of question that can send a person hurtling from a cliff to doom,” the sphinx said.

  “Maybe we can use the reverse-wood,” Rapunzel suggested.

  “How would that work?” Grundy asked. “It only reverses what’s next to it, and the Glades are everywhere.”

  “Well, maybe one step at a time,” she said uncertainly.

  “Worth trying,” Jordan said. “I’ll fetch it in.” He walked back.

  But in a moment he said, “Oh-oh. Cord broke.”

  It was true. Somewhere along the way the cord had frayed and separated, and the reverse-wood had been lost.

  “I can change to a bird and look around,” Threnody offered. “That would take some time, however.”

  “There’s no point in trudging on endlessly,” Grundy said.

  So they made camp where they were. There was an island of palm trees close by, their palms and fingers spreading out to provide shade, and some had cocoa-nuts filled with warm cocoa. It was a satisfactory place to visit, though they didn’t want to stay there forever.

  As night closed, Snortimer came out from under the bed; he had had to hide when day had come. Threnody commenced her change to bird-form. This was fascinating to see. First she gradually lost mass without changing size or shape, so that after an hour she was a ghostly sphinx that the others could walk through without hurting her. Then she changed to bird-size, with all her diminished mass solidifying. That took another hour. Finally she changed to bird-form, becoming a swift, which of course could fly high and fast.

  “She’s been working on that,” Jordan said with pride. “It isn’t easy to fly, just because you have the bird’s form; you have to learn how. She still can’t do it as well as a real bird can, but she’s improving.”

  The swift spread her wings and took off. She was somewhat clumsy, and lurched a bit, but she got straightened out and ascended into the starry night sky. If Lake Ogre-Chobee were close by, she would surely spy it!

  Then a larger shape appeared, flying after the swift. “That’s a falcon!” Jordan exclaimed. “Get out of there, Renee!” It was a nickname he called her, dating from the time she had been a ghost.

  The swift turned and dived, trying to get back to camp, but the falcon followed, cutting across to catch her. “Gotcha, you interfering wench!” the falcon squawked in bird-talk.

  “That’s the Sea Hag!” Grundy cried, appalled.

  Jordan brought out his bow and nocked an arrow.

  “You can’t shoot!” Rapunzel protested. “It’s dark, and they’re moving; if you hit anything, it’s likely to be the wrong one!”

  But the barbarian squinted, and held his aim, and as the hawk dug her claws into the swift and spread her wings to ascend, he fired. The shaft sailed up—and transfixed the body of the hawk. Both birds fell—but the swift was alive, the hawk dead.

  “What an amazing shot!” Rapunzel exclaimed.

  “I’m a barbarian,” Jordan said shortly, putting away his bow. He strode out to recover the swift.

  She was injured. The Hag-hawk’s talons had punctured her body, damaging muscles and tissues. She was not in critical condition, but she would not be flying again this night.

  Jordan shook his head, pained. “She can’t heal the way I do,” he said. “I never meant for her to get hurt!”

  “The Hag was just biding her time, waiting her chance,” Grundy said. “She wanted to get rid of Threnody, because she was making it too easy for us to travel. I should have been alert for that.”

  “We none of us were thinking,” Jordan said gruffly.

  They stood a kind of vigil, while Threnody slowly returned to her normal form. It took half the night, because of her injuries, but at last she was lying in human guise, with puncture-wounds in her arms and body. Grundy wished they had some healing elixir, but that was precious stuff and no one had thought it necessary.

  “Oh, it can be so ugly in real life,” Rapunzel murmured. “Almost, I wish—”

  “That’s what the Hag wants,” Grundy reminded her. “To make you so miserable that you’ll be glad to go back to the Ivory Tower.”

  Her chin firmed. “I’ll never go back there!” she exclaimed.

  They rested for the rest of the night, as there was no point in trying to travel, especially with Threnody injured. Grundy and Rapunzel insisted that Threnody be given the bed to lie on, until she was better. “And if Snortimer grabs your ankle, don’t be concerned,” Rapunzel told her. “He means no harm.”

  “And he has good taste in ankles,” Grundy added.

  The two of them settled in a nest of tall grass they fashioned. Rapunzel had never once changed to her human-size, since the arrival of Jordan and Threnody. She stayed close to Grundy, and always held his hand when they settled down. He didn’t dare confess how much he liked that.

  “I wish the falcon hadn’t been killed,” he said morosely.

  “I know what you mean. Now she’s loose again.”

  “And we don’t know when or where or in what form she’ll strike.”

  “I wish there was some way to make her stop wanting my body!” Rapunzel said. “I don’t really want harm to come to her, I just want her to leave me alone.”

  “Well, if we get you to Castle Roogna,” he said, “I’m sure someone there will be able to help you.”

  She lay a while in silence. Then, with feminine shift of mood, she asked: “Why did you say you aren’t Bluebell?”

  He sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does. I made you unhappy, and I didn’t want to do that. Threnody gave me some advice on how to get along with a man, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.”

  “Because I’m not a man,” he said.

  “Well, you certainly aren’t a woman! It’s obvious you aren’t Bluebell. So why did you have to say it?”

  Regretfully, he explained. “Because she was just a temporary connection. He loved her and left her.”

  “But that was all it was ever supposed to be!” she protested. “Elves and men don’t stay together.”

  “True.”

  “And I’m descended from them.”

  “True.”

  “So why aren’t you Bluebell? I mean, of course you aren’t, but—”

  “I don’t want to be loved and left.”

  “But nobody’s leaving you!”

  “You are. Once we get you to Castle Roogna, so you can join your own kind.”

  “I’m not even sure what my own kind is!”

  “Human or elven,” he said tiredly. “You’ll be able to take your choice.”

  She considered. “Let me see if I have this straight, at last. You like me, but you know I’ll leave you when I find out what my true heritage is, so you don’t want to get too involved.”

  Grundy was startled. “That’s it exactly!”

  “And you’re a Golem, a living Golem, and there’s no one else exactly like you, male or fema
le, so you know you have to be alone.”

  It was amazing how completely she understood his situation, now. “Yes.”

  “But if you ever did find someone else, you would never change your mind.”

  How tellingly and cruelly she put it, without understanding how it cut him. “I’m glad you finally have it clear.”

  “You don’t sound glad.”

  “I’m glad you understand, not glad for me,” he clarified.

  “I may have it straight, but I don’t understand.”

  “What?”

  “Now you’re confused,” she said, satisfied. “Serves you right!” And she took his hand and settled down to sleep.

  It took him somewhat longer.

  Next day, while Threnody continued to lie on the bed and heal, now and then dangling a well-turned ankle down for Snortimer to grab at, the others tried to find some way out of the Ever-Glades. Since there was no end to the sealike grass, they explored the island of palm trees. But it was only an island; no matter which way they went through it, they came out on the opposite side and faced the expanse of grass again. The faint hope that the trees would banish the grass was dashed.

  Grundy tried questioning the palms. “Do you know any way out of here?”

  The hands clapped, applauding the question. “There is no way out of here! That’s what so nice about the Ever-Glades.”

  An allegory swam up, checking them over. It looked just like the one they had seen before. “Do you know any way out of here?” he asked it.

  “Well, speaking metaphorically,” the creature began.

  “Yes or no?”

  The allergory smiled with its long and toothy snoot. “No.” Then it tried to snap him up.

  Grundy jumped back, ready for that move. Naturally such a predator wouldn’t tell him of any way out.

  “I guess,” Jordan said at last, “we had better just plow on and hope we get somewhere. That’s the barbarian way.”

  That did not appeal particularly to Grundy, but he had nothing better to offer. If they weren’t going to get out of the Glades, they might as well do it with their best effort.

  They decided to move out at nightfall, because Threnody pronounced herself well enough to travel. But she was obviously not completely healed, so the others refused to let her change to sphinx-form and carry them; she had to remain as herself.

  Who would carry the bed? Rapunzel could change to human size and carry one end, but she seemed reluctant to do that. She had remained golem-sized the whole time they were in the Ever-Glades, and Grundy appreciated that without quite understanding her rationale. Certainly there were advantages to the human size! Threnody was too weak to do it, and Snortimer was likely to have trouble doing it here in the swamp; his hands tended to sink into the muck, making progress difficult unless he used all five of them cleverly. Grundy himself couldn’t do it; he was far too small.

  That left Jordan. “No problem,” the barbarian said.

  “But who will carry the other end?” Grundy asked.

  “Just tie the bed to my back,” Jordan said.

  “But it’s too heavy to—”

  “Not for an uncivilized warrior,” he said cheerfully. And indeed he was correct; they bound the bed to his back, and he heaved it up, leaned forward somewhat, and strode forth.

  The others followed. Threnody was second, and Grundy and Rapunzel mounted Snortimer and brought up the rear. The Bed Monster was able to carry them without difficulty, because they were small and light and because he didn’t need to use any hands to hold them in place, as he would have had to do for the bed. He picked his way across the tufts and hummocks of the swamp, and kept the pace handily.

  But it was to no avail. They trudged along all night, and as dawn threatened they remained exactly where they had been: in the middle of the Glades. They found another copse of trees exactly like the first and set up the bed under a palm tree just like the first.

  “Oh!” Rapunzel exclaimed.

  Grundy rushed over, alarmed. “What?”

  “This is the same place!” she exclaimed. “See, there are the dents of the four bed legs, and there’s the place where we buried our—” here she pinkened a trifle—“refuse.”

  Sure enough: their toilet trench was there. Grundy alerted the others, and quickly they verified that every tree was the same, with the same cocoa-nut shells remaining. They had been here before.

  “But we traveled in a straight line!” Jordan said, scratching his head. “I steered by the stars; I know I didn’t make any circle!”

  The others agreed. They had not drifted aimlessly. But this was the same place they had left.

  “Let me check this,” Jordan said. He stepped out toward the nearest other island of palms.

  “Take me with you!” Grundy cried.

  “Okay,” the barbarian agreed, and reached down a hand for him. Grundy scrambled up to his shoulder.

  They crossed rapidly to the other copse. At one point there was a stirring in the water, but Jordan put his hand on his sword and Grundy called out: “Keep your snoot clear, allegory!”

  “Oh, you again,” the allegory muttered from the shadow. “You’ll never find your way out of here, you know.”

  It was the same allegory! Grundy felt a chill, for he knew the creature could not have followed them all that way on its fat little legs.

  The other island turned out to be identical to the first, cocoa-nut shards and all, and—there were the others of their party!

  “What are you doing here?” Grundy demanded.

  “What are you doing here?” Rapunzel responded. She was now sitting on Threnody’s shoulder, emulating Grundy’s style. “We just watched you enter the other copse!”

  “We did,” Grundy said. “This is the other copse!”

  “No, this is the original one,” she insisted. “We never moved.”

  “Something mighty peculiar here,” Jordan said.

  With that they all agreed. But Rapunzel was more thoughtful than the others. “I wonder—I wasn’t told much about the Ever-Glades, but there is something—they’re not as big as they seem.”

  “That doesn’t make much difference,” Grundy said, “if we can’t get out.”

  “I think we should experiment,” she said. “You see, we watched you go northwest, but you came up behind us, from the southeast. Maybe if we had watched the other way—”

  “Say, yes,” Grundy agreed. “Let’s try it again, only this time you watch both ways.”

  And so they did. He and Jordan headed northwest toward the other copse, while Rapunzel dismounted and watched them go, and Threnody went to the opposite side of the island and watched for what might occur there.

  About halfway across, Grundy’s sharp eyes spied something. “There’s someone there!” he said.

  Jordan peered ahead. “That’s Renee!” he said.

  Grundy turned to look back. Because he knew exactly where to look, he was able to spot little Rapunzel. “They’re both places,” he said.

  They proceeded on past the allegory and reached the new copse. “You never left, right?” Jordan asked Threnody.

  “Correct,” she agreed. “I simply crossed, and saw you coming from the other island.”

  Now it was definite: it was all the same place, no matter how they moved. Grundy crossed over to the northwest side, leaving Jordan and Threnody where they were, joined Rapunzel, and looked across to the other copse. There he was able to spy two figures, male and female, standing at its southeast edge.

  “We are all here—and there—and everywhere,” Grundy said, amazed.

  “Now I think I remember,” Rapunzel said. “It’s a—a little universe in itself. We simply go round and round it, never escaping.”

  “And all our long treks—were simply round and round,” Grundy agreed. “We should have saved our energy.”

  Jordan and Threnody came up. “How the blank are we going to get out of here?” Jordan asked, bewildered.

  The others shrugged. T
hey had no idea. It seemed that they really were stuck in the Ever-Glades forever.

  13

  Fauns & Nymphs

  They ate and rested, as they were all tired and there seemed to be nothing better to do at the moment. Grundy and Rapunzel slept on the bed, while Jordan and Threnody settled elsewhere in the copse.

  In early afternoon they woke. Rather, Grundy woke; the damsel was already awake, because she was kissing him.

  “I suppose this is a silly question,” he began when she was through. “But—”

  “I was just thinking,” she said, addressing his question skew-fashion. “Here we are, lost in the Ever-Glades because we just can’t seem to find out how to get anywhere. And here we are too, you and I, for the same reason.”

  “The same—?”

  “If I knew how to get anywhere with you, I’d do it. But I can’t figure out how.”

  “Rapunzel, you don’t need to get anywhere with me!” he protested. “You have two whole futures to choose from!”

  “Because I just can’t make you listen. And I wish I could.”

  “But—”

  “So I kissed you,” she concluded simply.

  Evidently that made sense to her. Grundy sighed and got up.

  “Suppose we never do find our way out of here?” she inquired after a moment. “Would that be so bad? I mean, I was trapped in the Ivory Tower for most of my life, and I got along all right, and so I’m used to it, only now I have company, and maybe in time you would accept it too.”

  To be sealed away forever, with plenty of food, and her for company? No, it wouldn’t be bad! But he knew he had no right to want that. “I have a Quest,” he reminded her. “I promised to rescue Stanley Steamer.”

  “Yes, of course,” she agreed. “You’re very conscientious.”

  They foraged for another meal. “I wonder where that Hag of yours is?” Jordan said.

  “She must be trapped here too,” Grundy conjectured. “Unless she knows some way out.”

  “I don’t think she would have come here, if she didn’t know a way out,” Rapunzel said. “I’m sure she knew the nature of the Ever-Glades.”