“Me help he go, with big heave-ho!” Smash offered.
“But we need his magic,” Irene said, verbally interposing herself to prevent further trouble. “Just as we need your strength, Smash.” And she laid her hand on the ogre’s ponderous arm, pacifying him.
Dor found himself resenting this, too, though he understood her motive.
The peace had to be kept.
They settled down for the night-and the sand gave alarm. The monsters it warned of turned out to be sand fleas-bugs so small they could hardly even be seen. Amolde dug a vermin-repulsor spell out of his collection, and that took care of the matter. They settled down again and this time slept. Once more the nightmares were unable to reach them, since the magic horses were bound to the magic realm of Xanth and could not cross the Mundane territory intervening. Dor almost felt sympathy for the mares; they had been balked from doing their duty to trouble people’s sleep for several nights now, and must be very frustrated.
They resumed their march in the morning. But as the new day wore on, the gloom of failure became more pervasive. “Something certainly appears to be amiss,” Amolde observed. “From what we understand, King Trent had to have passed this vicinity-yet the objects here deny it. Perhaps it is not entirely premature to entertain conjectures.”
Smash wrinkled his hairy brow, trying to figure out whether this was another rarefied insult. “Say what’s on your mind, horsetail,” Grundy said with his customary diplomacy.
“We have ascertained that the Queen could not have employed her power to deceive the local objects,” Amolde said didactically.
“Not without magic,” Dor agreed. “The two of them were strictly Mundane-type people here, as far as we know.”
“Could they have failed to come in from the sea?”
“No!” Irene cried emotionally.
“I have queried the sea,” Dor said. “It says nothing like that is in it.” Irene relaxed.
“Could they have employed a completely different route? Perhaps crossed to the eastern coast of Xanth and sailed north from there to intercept another region of Mundania?”
“They didn’t,” Irene said firmly. “They had it all planned, to come out here. Someone had found a good trade deal, and they were following his map. I saw it, and the route passed here.”
“But if you don’t know -“ Dor protested.
“I didn’t know they were going to travel the route, then,” she said. “But I did see the map when their scout brought it in, with the line on it Now I know what it meant. That’s all I saw, but I am absolutely certain this was the way they headed.”
Dor was disinclined to argue the point further. This did seem to be the only practical route. He had told the others all he knew about King Trent’s destination, and this route certainly did not conflict with that information.
“Could they have been intercepted before leaving Xanth?” Arnolde continued, evidently with an intellectual conclusion in mind. “Waylaid, perhaps?”
“My father would have turned any waylayer into a toad,” she said defiantly. “Anyway, inside Xanth, my mother’s illusion would have made them impossible to identify.”
“Then it seems we have eliminated the likely,” Amolde said. “We are thus obliged to contemplate the unlikely.”
“What do you mean?” Irene asked.
“As I intimated, it is an unlikely supposition that I entertain, quite possibly erroneous-“
“Spit it out, brownfur,” Grundy said.
“My dear vociferous construct, a civilized centaur does not expectorate. And my color is appaloosa, not mere brown.”
Irene was catching on to her power over the centaur, and over males in general. “Please, Amolde,” she pleaded sweetly. “It’s so important to me to know anything that might help find my lost father-“
“Of course, dear child,” Amolde agreed quickly, adopting an avuncular pose. “It is simply this: perhaps King Trent did not pass this region when we suppose he did.”
“It had to be within this past month,” she said.
“Not necessarily. That is the extraordinary aspect of this supposition. He may have passed here a century ago.”
Now Dor, Irene, and Grundy peered at the centaur intently to see whether he was joking. Smash, less interested in intellectual conjectures, idly formed sandstone by squeezing handfuls of sand until the mineral fused. His new gauntlets evidently enabled him to apply his power in ways that were beyond his natural limits before, since even ogre’s flesh was marginally softer than stone. A modest sandstone castle was developing.
“You happen to sleep with your head underwater last night?” the golem inquired solicitously.
“I have, as I have clarified previously, engaged in a modicum of research into the phenomena of Mundania,” Amolde said. “I confess I know only the merest fraction of what may be available, and must be constantly alert for error, but certain conclusions are becoming more credible. Through history, certain anomalies have manifested in the relationship between continuums. There is of course the matter of linguistics-it appears that there exist multiple languages in Mundania, yet all become intelligible in Xanth. I wonder if you properly appreciate the significance of-“
Irene was growing impatient. She tapped her small foot on the ground.
“How could he have passed a century ago, when he wasn’t even born then?”
“It is this matter of discontinuity, as I was saying. Time seems to differ; there may be no constant ratio. There is evidence that the several Waves of human colonization of Xanth originated from widely divergent subcultures within Mundania, and, in fact, some may be anachronistic. That is to say, the last Wave of people may have originated from a period in Mundania preceding that of the prior Wave.”
“Now wait!” Dor exclaimed. “I visited Xanth of eight hundred years ago, and I guess that was a kind of time travel, but that was a special case. Since there’s no magic in Mundania, how could people get reversed like that? Are their times mixed up?”
“No, I believe their framework is consistent in their world. Yet If the temporal sequence were reversed with respect to ours-“
“I just want to know where my father is!” Irene snapped.
“He may be in Mundania’s past-or its future,” the centaur said. “We simply do not know what law governs transfer across the barrier of magic, but it seems to be governed from Xanth’s side. That is, we may be able to determine into what age of Mundania we travel, whereas the access of Mundania to Xanth is random and perhaps in some cases impossible. It is a most intriguing interface. It is as if Xanth were a boat sailing along a river; the passengers may disembark anywhere they choose, merely by picking their port, or a specific time on the triptych, so to speak, but the natives along the shores can take only that craft that happens to pass within their range. This is an inadequate analogy, I realize, that does not properly account for certain-“
“The King can be anywhen in Mundania?” Irene demanded skeptically.
“Marvelously succinct summation,” Amolde admitted.
“But he told me ‘medieval,’” Dor protested.
“That does narrow it,” the centaur agreed. “But it covers an extraordinary range, and if he was speaking figuratively-?”
“Then how can we ever find him?” Irene demanded.
“That becomes problematical. I hasten to remind you that this is merely a theory, undocumented, perhaps fallacious. I would not have introduced it for consideration, except-“
“Except nothing else fits,” Irene said. “Suppose it’s right. What do we do now?”
“Well, I believe it would expedite things if we located research facilities in Mundania. Some institution where detailed records exist, archives-“
“And you’re an archivist!” Dor exclaimed.
“Precisely. This should enable me to determine at what period in Mundania’s history we have intruded. Since, as King Dor says, King Trent referred to a medieval period, that would provide a frame of reference.”
“If we’re in the wrong Mundane century,” Irene said, “how do we get to him?”
“We should be required to return to Xanth and undertake a new mission to that century. As I mentioned, it seems feasible to determine the temporal locale from Xanth, and once in that aspect of Mundania, we would be fixed in it until returning to Xanth. However, this procedure is fraught with uncertainties and potential complications.”
“I should think so,” Dor said. “If we figured it wrong, we might get there before he did.”
“Oh, I doubt that would happen, other than on the macroscopic scale, of course.”
“The what?” Dor asked.
“I believe the times are consistent in particular circumstances. That is to say, within a given age, we could enter Mundania only with an elapsed period consonant with that of Xanth. Therefore-“
“We might miss by a century, but not by a day,” Grundy said.
“That is the essence, golem. The particular channels appear to be fixed-“
“So let’s go find the century!” Irene said, brightening. “Then all we’d need is the place.”
“With appropriate research, the specific geography should also be evident.”
“Then let’s go find your archives,” she said.
“Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of this period,” Amolde reminded her. “We are hardly likely to locate a suitable facility randomly.”
“I can help there,” Dor said. “It should be where there are a lot of people, right?”
“Correct, King Dor.”
“Uh, better not call me King here. I’m not, really, and people might find it strange.” Then Dor addressed the sand. “Which way to where most people live?”
“How should I know?” the sand asked.
“You know which direction most of them come from, and where they return.”
“Oh, that. They mostly go north.”
“North it is,” Dor agreed.
They marched north, and in due course encountered a Mundane path that debouched into a road that became a paved highway. No such highway existed in Xanth, and Dor had to question this one closely to ascertain its nature. It seemed it served to facilitate the travel of metal and rubber vehicles that propelled themselves with some sort of magic or whatever it was that Mundanes used to accomplish such wonders. These wagons were called “cars,” and they moved very rapidly.
“I saw something like that below ground,” Grundy said. “The demons rode in them.”
Soon the party saw a car. The thing zoomed along like a racing dragon, belching faint smoke from its posterior. They stared after it, amazed. “Fire it send from wrong end,” Smash said.
“Are you sure there’s no magic in Mundania?” Grundy asked. “Even the demons didn’t have firebreathers.”
“I am not at all certain,” Amolde admitted. “Perhaps they merely have a different name and application for their magic. I doubt it would operate for us. Perhaps this is the reason we believe there is no magic in Mundania-it is not applicable to our needs.”
“I don’t want any part of that car,” Irene said. “Any dragon shooting out smoke from its rear is either crazy or has one awful case of indigestion! How could it fight? Let’s find our archives and get out of here.”
The others agreed. This aspect of Mundania was certainly inverted. They avoided the highway, making their way along assorted paths that paralleled it. Dor continued to query the ground, and by nightfall they were approaching a city. It was a strange sort of settlement, with roads that crisscrossed to form large squares, and buildings all lined up with their fronts right on the edges of the roads, so that there was hardly room for any forest there, jammed in close together. Some were so tall it was a wonder they didn’t fall over when the wind blew.
Dor’s party camped at the edge of the city, under a large umbrella tree Irene grew to shelter them. The tree’s canopy dipped almost to the ground, concealing them, and this seemed just as well. They were not sure how the Mundanes would react to the sight of an ogre, golem, or centaur.
“We have gone as far as we can as a group,” Dor said. “There are many people here, and few trees; we can’t avoid being seen any more. I think Irene and I had better go in and find a museum.“
“A library,” Amolde corrected him. “I would love to delve eternally in a Mundane museum, but the information is probably most readily accessible in a library.”
“A library,” Dor agreed. He knew what that was, because King Trent had many books in his library-office in Castle Roogna.
“However, that is academic, no pun intended,” the centaur continued. “You cannot go there without me.”
“I know I’ll step out of magic,” Dor said. “But I won’t need to do anything special. Nothing magical. Once I find the library for you-“
“You have no certainty you can even speak their language,” Arnolde said curtly. “In the magic ambience, you can; beyond it, this is problematical.”
“I’m not sure we speak the same language in our own group, sometimes,” Irene said with a smile. “Words like ‘ambience, and ‘problematical!’”
“I can speak their language,” Grundy said. “That’s my talent. I was made to translate.”
“A magical talent,” Amolde said.
“Oooops,” Grundy said, chagrined. “Won’t work outside the aisle.”
“But you can’t just walk in to the city!” Dor said. “I’m sure they aren’t used to centaurs.”
“I would have to walk in to use the library,” Amolde pointed out. “Fortunately, I anticipated such an impediment, so obtained a few helpful spells from our repository. We centaurs do not normally practice inherent magic, but we do utilize particular enchantments on an ad hoc basis. I have found them invaluable when on field trips to the wilder regions of Xanth.” He checked through his bag of spells, much the way Irene checked through her seeds. “I have with me assorted spells for invisibility, inaudibility, untouchability, and so forth. The golem and I can traverse the city unperceived.”
“What about the ogre?” Dor asked. “He can’t exactly merge with the local population either.”
Amolde frowned. “Him, too, I suppose,” he agreed distastefully. “However, there is one attendant liability inherent in this process-“
“I won’t be able to detect you either,” Dor finished.
“Precisely. Some one of our number must exist openly, for these spells make the handling of books awkward; our hands would pass right through the pages. My ambience of magic should be unimpaired, of course, and we could remain with you-but you would have to do all the research unassisted.”
“He’ll never make it,” Irene said.
“She’s right,” Dor said. “I’m just not much of a scholar. I’d mess it up.”
“Allow me to cogitate,” Amolde said. He closed his eyes and stroked his chin reflectively. For a worried moment Dor thought the centaur was going to be sick, then realized that he had the wrong word in mind. Cogitate actually referred to thinking.
“Perhaps I have an alternative,” Amolde said. “You could obtain the assistance of a Mundane scholar, a qualified researcher, perhaps an archivist. You could pay him one of the gold coins you have hoarded, or perhaps a diamond; I believe either would have value in any frame of Mundania.”
“Uh, I guess so,” Dor said doubtfully.
“I tell you, even with help, he’ll foul it up,” Irene said. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier compliments on Dor’s performance. That was one of the little things about her selective memory. “You’re the one who should do the research, Amolde.”
“I can only, as it were, look over his shoulder,” the centaur said. “It would certainly help if I could direct the manner he selects references and turns the pages, as I am a gifted reader with a fine memory. He would not have to comprehend the material. But unless I were to abort the imperceptibility spells, which I doubt very much would be wise since I have no duplicates-“
“There’s a way, maybe,”
Grundy said. “I could step outside the magic aisle. Then he could see me and hear me, and I could tell him to turn the page, or whatever.”
“And any Mundanes in the area would pop their eyeballs, looking at the living doll,” Irene said. “If anyone does it, I’m the one.”
“So they can pop their eyes looking up your skirt,” the golem retorted, miffed.
“That may indeed be the solution,” Amolde said.
“Now wait a minute!” Irene cried.
“He means the messenger service,” Dor told her gently.
“Of course,” the centaur said. “Since we have ascertained that the aisle is narrow, it would be feasible to stand quite close while Dor remains well within the forward extension.”
Dor considered, and it did seem to be the best course. He had somehow thought he could just go into Mundania, follow King Trent’s trail by querying the terrain, and reach the King without much trouble. This temporal discontinuity, as the centaur put it, was hard to understand and harder to deal with, and the vicarious research the centaur proposed seemed fraught with hangups. But what other way was there? “We’ll try it,” he agreed. “In the morning.”
They settled down for the night, their second in Mundania. Smash and Grundy slept instantly; Dor and Irene had more trouble, and Arnolde seemed uncomfortably wide awake. “We are approaching direct contact with Mundane civilization,” the centaur said. “In a certain sense this represents the culmination of an impossible dream for me, almost justifying the personal damnation my magic talent represents. Yet I have had so many confusing intimations, I hardly know what to expect. This city could be too primitive to have a proper library. The denizens could for all we know practice cannibalism. There are so many imponderabilities.”
“I don’t care what they practice,” Irene said. “Just so long as I find my father.”
“Perhaps we should query the surroundings in the morning,” Arnolde said thoughtfully, “to ascertain whether suitable facilities exist here, before we venture any farther. Certainly we do not wish to chance discovery by the Mundanes unless we have excellent reason.”
“And we should ask where the best Mundane archivist is,” Irene agreed.
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