“Well, tomorrow is destined to have intermittent showers,” Amolde said. “There should be a rainbow. There is a spell in the archives for traveling the rainbow. It is very fast, for rainbows do not endure long. There is some risk-“
“Speed is what we need,” Dor said, remembering his dreamvisions, where there had been a sensation of urgency. “I think King Trent is in trouble and needs to be rescued soon. Maybe not in the next day, but I don’t think we can afford to wait a month.”
“There is also the problem of mounting the rainbow,” Amolde said. Now that he had accepted the distasteful notion of his own magic, his mind was relating to the situation very readily. Perhaps it was because he was trained in the handling of information and knew how to organize it. “Part of the rainbow’s magic, as you know, is that it appears equally distant from all observers, with its two ends touching the ground equally far from them, north and south. We must ascend to its top, then slide down quickly before it fades.”
“The salve!” Grundy said. “We can mount smoke to a cloud, and run across the cloud to the top of the rainbow, if we start early, before the rainbow forms.”
“You just don’t understand,” the centaur said. “It will seem just as far from us when we board the cloud. Catching a rainbow is one of the hardest things to do.”
“I can see why,” Dor muttered. “How can we catch one if it always retreats?”
“Excise the eyes,” Smash suggested, covering his own gross orbs with his gauntleted mitts.
“Of course the monster is right,” Amolde said, not looking at Smash, whom he seemed to find objectionable. “That is the obvious solution.”
It was hardly obvious to Dor. “How can covering our eyes get us to the rainbow?”
“It can hardly appear distant if you don’t look at it,” Amolde said.
“Yes, but-“
“I get it,” Grundy said. “We spot it, then close our eyes and go to where we saw it, and it can’t get away because we aren’t looking at it. Simple.”
“But somebody has to look at it, or it isn’t there,” Irene protested. “Or is it?”
“Chet can look at it,” Grundy said. “He’s not going on it any way.”
Dor distrusted this, but the others seemed satisfied. “Let’s get some sleep tonight and see what happens tomorrow,” he said, hoping it all made sense.
They slept late, but that was all right because the intermittent rain wasn’t due until midmorning. Amolde dutifully acquainted the centaur Elders with his situation; as expected, they encouraged him to depart the Isle forever at his very earliest convenience, without directly referring to the reason for his loss of status in their community. A Magician was not wanted here; they could not be comfortable with him. They would let it be known that Amolde was retiring for reasons of health, so as to preserve his reputation, and they would arrange to break in a new archivist. No one would know his shame. To facilitate his prompt departure they provided him with a useful assortment of spells and counterspells for his journey, and wished him well.
“The hypocrites!” Irene exclaimed. “For fifty years Amolde serves them well, and now, suddenly, just because-“
“I said you would not comprehend the nuances of centaur society,” Chet reminded her, though he did not look comfortable himself.
Irene shut up rebelliously. Dor liked her better for her feeling, however. It was time to leave Centaur Isle, and not just because they had a new mission.
The intermittent clouds formed and made ready to shower. Dor set up a smudge pot and got a column of smudge angling up to intersect the cloud level. They applied the salve to their feet and hands, invoked the curse-counterspells Amolde distributed, and marched up the column. Amolde adjusted to this odd climb remarkably well for his age; he had evidently kept himself in traveling shape by making archaeological field trips.
For a moment they paused to turn back to face Chet, who was standing on the beach, watching for the rainbow. Dor found himself choking up, and could only wave.
“I hope to see you again, cousin,” Amolde called. Chet was not related to him; what he referred to was the unity of their magic talents.
“And meet your sire.” And Chet smiled, appreciating the thought.
When they reached the cloud layer, they donned blindfolds.
“Clouds,” Dor said, “tell us where the best path to the top of the rainbow is. Don’t let any of us step too near the edge of you.”
“What rainbow?” the nearest cloud asked.
“The one that is about to form, that my friend Chet Centaur will see from the ground.”
“Oh, that rainbow. It isn’t here yet. It hasn’t finished its business on the eastern coast of Xanth.”
“Well, guide us to where it’s going to be.”
“Why don’t you open your eyes and see it for yourself?” the canny cloud asked. The inanimate was often perverse, and the many folds and convolutions of clouds made them smarter than average.
“Just guide us,” Dor said.
“Aw.” But the cloud had to do it.
There was a popping sound behind them, down on the ground.
“That’s the popcorn I gave Chet,” Irene said. “I told him to set it off when he saw the rainbow. Now that rainbow is fixed in place, as long as he looks at it and we don’t; we must be almost upon it.”
“Are we?” Dor asked the cloud.
“Yeah,” the cloud conceded grudgingly. “It’s right ahead, though it has no head. That’s cumulus humor.”
“Rainbow!” Dor called. “Sing out If you hear me!”
Back came the rainbow’s song: “Tra-la-la-fol-de-rol!” It sounded beautiful and multicolored.
They hurried over to it. Once they felt its smooth surface projecting above the cloud and climbed upon it, they removed their blindfolds; the rainbow could no longer work its deceptive magic.
The rainbow was fully as lovely as it sounded. Bands of red and yellow, blue and green, extended lengthwise, and sandwiched between them, where ground observers couldn’t see them, were the secret riches of the welkin: bands of polka-dot, plaid, and checkerboard. Some internal bands were translucent, and some blazed with colors seldom imagined by man, like fortissimo, charm, phon, and torque. It would have been easy to become lost in their wonders, and Irene seemed inclined to do just that, but the rainbow would not remain here long. It seemed rainbows had tight schedules, and this one was due for a showing somewhere in Mundania in half an hour.
Some magic, it seemed, did extend to Mundania; Dor wondered briefly whether the Mundanes would have the same trouble actually catching up to a rainbow, or whether there it would stay in place regardless how the viewers moved.
Amolde brought out his rainbow-travel span, which was sealed in a paper packet. He tore it open-and abruptly they began to slide.
The speed was phenomenal. They zoomed past the clouds, then down into the faintly rainy region below, plunging horrendously toward the sea to the north.
Below them was the land of Xanth, a long peninsula girt by thin islands along the coastlines. Across the center of it was the jagged chasm of the Gap that separated the northern half of Xanth from the southern. It appeared on no maps because no one remembered it, but this was no map. It was reality, as viewed from the rainbow. There were a number of lakes, such as Ogre-Chobee in the south, but no sign of the human settlements Dor knew were there. Man had simply not made much of an impression on Xanth, physically.
“Fun begun!” Smash cried joyfully.
“Eeek-my skirt!” Irene squealed as the mischievous gusts whipped it up, displaying her legs to the whole world. Dor wondered why she insisted on wearing a skirt despite such constant inconveniences; pants of some kind would have solved the problems decisively. Then it occurred to him that she might not want that particular problem solved. She was well aware that her legs were the finest features of a generally excellent body and perhaps was not averse to letting the world know it also. If she constantly protested any inadvertent exposures
that occurred, how could anyone blame her for showing herself off? She had a pretty good system going.
Dor and Grundy and Amolde, less sanguine about violence than the ogre and less modest than Irene, hung on to the sliding are of the rainbow and stared ahead and down with increasing misgiving.
How were they to stop, once the end came? The descent was drawing close at an alarming velocity. The northern shoreline of Xanth loomed rapidly larger, the curlicues of beaches magnifying. The ocean in this region seemed oddly reddish; Dor hoped that wasn’t from the blood of prior travelers of the rainbow. Of course it wasn’t; how could he think such a thought?
Then the travel-spell reversed, and they slid rapidly slower until, as they reached the water at the end of the rainbow, they were moving at no more than a running pace. They plunged into the crimson water and swam for the shore to the north. The color was not blood; it was translucently thin, up close. Dor was relieved.
Now that he could no longer see it from the air, Dor remembered other details of Xanth. The length of it was north-south, with the narrowest portion near where his grandfather Elder Roland’s village was, in the middle north on the western side. At the top, Xanth extended west, linking to Mundania by the isthmus they were headed for-and somehow Mundania beyond that isthmus seemed huge, much larger than Xanth. Dor decided that must be a misimpression; surely Mundania was about the same size as Xanth, or somewhat smaller. How could a region of so little importance be larger, especially without magic?
Now they came to the shallows and waded through the dark red water to the beach. That crimson bothered him as the color intensified near the tideline; how could the normally blue water change color here, in the Mundane quadrant? What magic could affect it here, where no magic existed?
“Maybe some color leaked from the rainbow,” Irene said, following his thought.
Well, maybe. Of course there was the centaur aisle of magic now, so that wherever they were was no longer strictly Mundane. Yet the red water extended well beyond the area of temporary enchantment.
It seemed to be a regular feature of the region.
They gathered on the beach, dripping pink water. Grundy and Smash didn’t mind, but Dor felt uncomfortable, and Irene’s blouse and skirt were plastered to her body. “I’m not walking around this way, and I’m not taking off my clothes,” she expostulated. She felt in her seedbag, which she had refilled at Centaur Isle, and brought out a purple seed. It seemed the bag was waterproof, for the seed was dry. “Grow,” she ordered it as she dropped it on the sand.
The thing sprouted into a heliotrope. Clusters of small purple flowers burst open aromatically. Warm dry air wafted outward. This plant did not really travel toward the sun; it emulated the sun’s heat, dehydrating things in the vicinity. Soon their clothing was dry again.
Even Smash and Grundy appreciated this, since both now wore the special jackets given them by the centaurs. Smash also shook out his gauntlets and dried them, and Irene spread her silver-lined fur out nearby.
“Do we know where we go from here?” Irene asked once she had her skirt and blouse properly fluffed out.
“Did King Trent pass this way?” Dor inquired of the landscape.
“When?” the beach-sand asked.
“Within the past month.”
“I don’t think so.”
They moved a short distance north, and Dor tried again. Again the response was negative. As the day wore into afternoon and on into evening, they completed their traverse of the isthmus-without positive result. The land had not seen the King.
“Maybe the Queen still had an illusion of invisibility enchantment,” Grundy suggested. “So nothing could see them.”
“Her illusion wouldn’t work here in Mundania, dummy,” Irene retorted. She was still miffed at the golem because of the way Grundy had caused her to lose half her seeds to the eclectic eel. She carried a little grudge a long time.
“I am not properly conversant with King Trent’s excursion,” Arnolde said. “Perhaps he departed Xanth by another route.”
“But I know he came this way!” Irene said.
“You didn’t even know he was leaving Xanth,” Grundy reminded her. “You thought he was inside Xanth on vacation.”
She shrugged that off as irrelevant. “But this is the only route out of Xanth!” Her voice was starting its hysterical tremor.
“Unless he went by sea,” Dor said.
“Yes, he could have done that,” she agreed quickly. “But he would have come ashore somewhere. My mother gets seasick when she’s in a boat too long. All we have to do is walk along the beach and ask the stones and plants.”
“And watch for Mundane monsters,” Grundy said, still needling her. “So they can’t look up your-“
“I am inclined to doubt that countermagical species will present very much of a problem,” Amolde said in his scholarly manner.
“What he know, he hoofed schmoe?” Smash demanded.
“Evidently more than you, you moronic oaf,” the centaur snapped back. “I have been studying Mundania somewhat, recently, garnering information from immigrants, and by most reports most Mundane plants and animals are comparatively shy. Of course there is a certain margin for error, as in all phenomena.”
“What dray, he say?” Smash asked, perplexed by the centaur’s vocabulary.
“Dray!” Amolde repeated, freshly affronted. “A dray is a low cart, not a creature, you ignorant monster. I should thank you to address me by my proper appellation.”
“What’s the poop from the goop?” Smash asked.
Dor stifled a laugh, fuming it into a choking cough. In this hour of frustration, tempers were fraying, and they could not afford to have things get too negative.
Grundy opened his big mouth, but Dor managed to cover it in time. The golem could only aggravate the situation with his natural penchant for insults.
It was Irene who retained enough poise to alleviate the crisis.
“You just don’t understand a person of education, Smash. He says the Mundane monsters won’t dare bother us while you’re on guard.”
“Oh. So,” the ogre said, mollified.
“Ignorant troglodyte,” the centaur muttered.
That set it off again. “Me know he get the place of Chet!” Smash said angrily, forming his gauntlets into horrendous fists.
So that was the root of the ogre’s ire! He felt Amolde had usurped the position of his younger centaur friend. “No, that’s not so,” Dor started, seeking some way to alleviate his resentment. If their party started fracturing now, before they were fairly clear of Xanth, what would happen once they got deep into Mundania?
“And he called you a caveman, Smash,” Grundy put in helpfully.
“Compliments no good; me head like wood,” the ogre growled, evidently meaning that he refused to be swayed by soft talk.
“Indubitably,” Amolde agreed.
Dor decided to leave it at that; a more perfect understanding between ogre and centaur would only exacerbate things.
They walked along the beach. Sure enough, nothing attacked them. The trees were strange oval-leafed things with brownish inert bark and no tentacles. Small birds flitted among the branches, and gray animals scurried along the ground.
Amolde had brought along a tome of natural history, and he consulted it eagerly as each thing turned up. “An oak tree!” he exclaimed. “Probably the root stock of the silver oak, the blackjack oak, the turkey oak, and the acorn trees!”
“But there’s no silver, blackjacks, or acorns,” Grundy protested.
“Or turkeys,” Irene added.
“Certainly there are, in rudimentary forms,” the centaur said. “Observe a certain silvery aspect to some leaves, and the typical shape of others, primitively suggestive of other, eventual divergencies. And I suspect there are also acorns, in season. The deficiency of magic prevents proper manifestation, but to the trained perception-“
“Maybe so,’ the golem agreed, shrugging. It was evidently more than h
e cared to know about oak trees.
Dor continued to query the objects along the beach, and the water of the sea, but with negative results. All denied seeing King Trent or Queen Iris.
“This is ridiculous!” Irene expostulated. “I know he came this way!”
Amolde stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There does appear to be a significant discontinuity.”
“Something doesn’t fit,” Grundy agreed.
As the sun set, they made camp high on the beach. Rather than post watches, they decided to trust in magic. Dor told the sand in their vicinity to make an exclamation if anything dangerous or obnoxious intruded, and the sand promised to do so. Irene grew a blanket bush for their beds and set a chokecherry hedge around them for additional protection. They ate beefsteak tomatoes that they butchered and roasted on flame-vines, and drank the product of wine and-rain lilies.
“Young lady, your talent contributes enormously to our comfort,” Amolde complimented her, and Irene flushed modestly.
“Aw, he’s just saying that ‘cause she’s pretty,” Grundy grumbled.
That only made Irene flush with greater pleasure. Dor was not pleased, but could not isolate the cause of his reaction. The hangups of others were easier for him to perceive than his own.
“Especially when her skirt hikes up over her knees,” the golem continued. Irene quickly tugged down her hem, her flush becoming less attractive.
“Actually, there are few enough rewards to a mission like this,” Amolde said. “Had I my choice, I would instantly abolish my own magic and return to my sinecure at the museum, my shame extirpated.”
And there was the centaurs fundamental disturbance, Dor realized. He resented their dastardly deed that had ripped him from his contented existence and made him an exile from his kind. Dor could hardly blame him. Amolde’s agreement to travel with them to Mundania to help rescue King Trent did not mean he was satisfied with his lot; he was merely making the best of what was for him an awful situation.
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