Faun & Games

by Piers Anthony

  “We will do it together,” he said graciously. “And to hurry it up, we had better give them a ride there.”

  “Yes,” Cathryn agreed. Little hearts were forming around her head; she was falling in love.

  Forrest picked up the dear horn and put it in his knapsack. Then he climbed onto Contrary, behind the huge wings, and Imbri mounted Cathryn.

  “It's funny to ride an equine,” she said. “I'm equine myself.”

  “The faun region is To,” Cathryn said. “I don't know whether it's within my range, but I'll do my best to give you good directions if it isn't.”

  The two centaurs galloped west. Then they spread their wings and leaped into the air, surprising Forrest. This was indeed faster; he saw the ground passing rapidly behind. But as they gained elevation, the ground became smaller and passed behind more slowly, as if annoyed at being neglected. The mixed fields and forests gave way to mixed mountains and valleys, and then to mixed ponds and islands. The landscape seemed to be just as varied here as it was on Xanth.

  After a time the two centaurs glided back to land. “We're getting a bit old for this,” Contrary explained. Then Forrest saw that the creatures hide had become mottled with age. He was now nearing the old end of his life, and was slowing down. Forrest looked across at Cathryn and saw she had aged too. They had come a long way in a short time.

  Then the centaurs stopped. “This appears to be my limit,” Contrary said. “I don't want to become so feeble that I fall.”

  Forrest hastily dismounted, and so did Imbri. They were in rolling country, and ahead, oh dread, was a comic strip.

  “The faun territory is farther away than I thought,” Cathryn said with regret. “But I can tell you who can take you farther: the human princess twins, Dawn & Eve. Continue straight To until you come to Castle Roogna, and seek them out.”

  “But we are already in Castle Roogna,” Imbri said. “Ptero is a moon circling Princess Ida's head.”

  “Perhaps in that larger frame. But it is here, too, and this is the one you need. We have set you due From it, so you can't miss it if you stay on course. And if you return this way, send a signal and we will come to pick you up again.”

  “Thank you,” Forrest said. He realized that Cathryn really had been a big help; they had learned a whole lot about Ptero in her company.

  “Oh-one more thing,” she said. “You have been more than accommodating in our exchange of services, and I have not been able to complete my exchange service adequately, so I feel I should provide you with something extra. Here is one of my blankets that a passing Magician obligingly canned for me.” She held out a small tin can.

  “But I thought you had to invoke your spells yourself, and that they fade after a while.”

  “True. But this canned spell is special, thanks to the preservative properties of the can. You may invoke it at any time simply by saying ‘Invoke' while holding it before you. It is a blanket of obscurity.”

  “Obscurity?” Imbri asked. “What effect does that have?”

  “It makes you unlikely to be noticed,” the centaur explained. “It wears off after an hour, but you can invoke it again thereafter. It takes the same time to recharge: an hour. So don't try to invoke two blankets at once. I realize that this isn't much, but I have nothing better to give you. Please accept it with my thanks for your assistance to me.”

  “Of course,” Forrest said, moved by her gesture. “I'm sure it will be useful if we have to pass by a monster. Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome.” Cathryn's old eyes were bright. It seemed she had appreciated their association.

  Then he and Imbri turned to the west for the next leg of their journey.

  It was bound to be an adventure of its own.

  To either side they could see nice solid land, but straight west was a bog. It was tempting to deviate, but then they might lose the line to Castle Roogna. So they went straight ahead, splashing into the shallow water. Forrest hoped that the puns would not be too bad this time.

  Fortunately the land soon rose up, restoring their firm footing. But no sooner had they set foot and hoof on it when two odd birds marched up.

  “Who are you?” the birds demanded in unison.

  “We are visitors from afar, in search of Castle Roogna,” Forrest answered. “We are named Forrest and Imbrium.”

  “We are a pair o' keets,” the birds answered. “Peet and Deet. Welcome to Canary Island.”

  They didn't look much like canaries to Forrest, being more like small parrots, but he didn't comment on that. “Thank you. We hope just to cross it quickly and go on our way.”

  “Do that. We don't like landbound folk to stay long.” With that the two birds marched on.

  They came to a tree. It was huge and globular, with feathery leaves, and it was right in their way. The trouble was, it was also astride the only feasible path leading due west. To the south was a section of what looked a lot like slow sand, which would take forever to cross, and to the north was a similar patch of what looked like quicksand, which had risks of its own. “I wish we could just go right through this tree,” Forrest said.

  “Maybe we can climb over it,” Imbri said.

  Then the tree opened a huge round eye. That was followed by a second eye, and a beak just below it, that they had taken for a broken off limb. “Hooo!” it hooted.

  “It's an owl!” Forrest exclaimed. “A huge owl!”

  “An owl tree,” Imbri agreed.

  Then the owl spread its wings and took off. “Well, this is Canary Island,” Forrest said, bemused. “We have to expect birds, even if they aren't all canaries.”

  Several white birds flew overhead. Their bodies were in the shape of the letter C. “C-gulls,” Imbri said, identifying them.

  A ball of blackness approached. Forrest paused, not sure whether it was dangerous, but then he saw it was in the shape of a bird of prey. “Oh, it's just a night hawk,” he said. He stepped aside to let it pass, then stepped back onto the path when the light returned.

  But another bird flew up. “What a weird set of characters,” it said, eyeing them. “You are absolutely laughable. Haw haw haw!”

  “And a mockingbird,” Imbri said. “One of the more obnoxious avians, but harmless.”

  They ignored the mockingbird, and of course that discomfited it so that it flew away. But another bird flew in to perch before them. “What are you fools doing here?” it demanded harshly. “You don't belong here! Go away! Go away!”

  “We are only crossing the island,” Forrest explained.

  “You are polluting it with your foul presence!” the bird raved.

  “Get off our land! Go away! Go away!” The bird continued to shout at them, going on and on.

  “Now I recognize it,” Imbri said. “It's a rave-on.”

  Then a harpy appeared, dripping wet. She smelled terrible. “You're one of the canaries?” Forrest asked, surprised.

  “I'm a waterfoul,” she answered.

  “I should have known,” he said, hurrying by.

  They passed a large trunk. A bird was pecking a big hole in it. The moment it spied them, it flew to a branch above them and pecked a shower of sawdust and bits of bark, so that they were dirtied. “Hey, what are you doing?” Forrest demanded, annoyed.

  For answer, a smelly bird dropping came down, just missing his head.

  “That's a peccadillo,” Imbri said. “A bad mannered pecker.”

  Then there was the melodious cry of a lady bird to the north, and the peccadillo flew off to have something to do with her. “They especially like the ladies,” Imbri explained, with what might possibly have been the hint of a smirk.

  At last they got off Canary Island, and the edge of the comic strip was there, so that they returned to regular land. “I can see why not many folk care to cross the boundaries,” Forrest said. “Those puns don't really hurt you, but they're annoying as anything.”

  “I understand that some folk like them,” Imbri said.

  “Who
would like anything like that? Mundanes?”

  “Maybe. Mundania is a strange, repressed place.”

  “It must be, to have folk who like such junk.”

  The new region was hilly, and it was impossible to keep to a straight line west. But they oriented as well as they could, returning to the correct direction and compensating for their deviations, hoping they were close enough to find the castle.

  They were rewarded: they crested a ridge, and there in a colorful valley below was a picturesque castle. “There it is,” Forrest said, relieved.

  Imbri wasn't so sure. “That doesn't look like Castle Roogna.”

  “Things are different, here on Ptero. Maybe the castles are different too.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed doubtfully.

  They trekked on down the slope and reached the bowl-shaped valley where the castle stood. The trees closed in around them, each a distinct color: brown, including the leaves; green, including the trunk; yellow, blue, or white. They were pretty, but so thick that the castle was now hidden, with no clear path.

  Then Forrest noticed that one white tree had a brown trunk. It was comparatively normal. He went to that tree, and spied a blue tree with a brown trunk. Between them ran a straight brown path. “This must be the route,” he said.

  So they followed the path. It turned at right angles, then turned again, refusing to be rounded. But it stayed between the brown trunked trees. So they followed it, despite its constant square turns, and in due course it brought them to the bank of the square moat around the castle.

  From this vantage, the castle was much larger than it had seemed from afar. It had massive white stone walls, red roofs, and three squared towers rising above the second story. The drawbridge was up, and the moat was deep. There seemed to be no way in.

  “This seems less like Castle Roogna,” Forrest admitted. “The landscape is different, and there's no princess in blue jeans to greet us.”

  “It's the Good Magician's castle!” Imbri exclaimed. “It's always different, and always a Challenge to get into.”

  “Three Challenges,” he agreed, remembering. “So we did go astray, and came to the wrong castle.”

  “I'm not surprised. The path across Canary Island was somewhat crooked, and there were distractions. Then we had to guess at the direction when we passed the hills.”

  “I suppose we'll just have to retrace our steps and try to find the right direction.”

  They turned-but now the magic path was gone. The forest had closed in solidly behind them. Forrest had experience with trees, and could see immediately that these ones had no intention of allowing them to pass back through; brambles, thorns, stickers, nettles, and sharp pointed plants festooned the region between trees.

  “It was a one way path,” Imbri said. “I should have thought of that.

  I'm not used to being solid.”

  “I should have thought of it too,” Forrest said ruefully. “I'm supposed to relate well to trees.”

  “Well, we'll just have to ask the Good Magician the way to Castle Roogna.”

  Forrest eyed the moat. “Does that mean we'll have to get through three Challenges, and pay a year's Service?”

  She nodded. “I'm afraid it does. Unless we can talk him into letting us through without all that.”

  “Well, he didn't charge me before. I'm still not sure why.”

  Imbri looked thoughtful, but didn't comment.

  So they addressed the Challenge of getting into the castle. There was no sign of a moat monster, but they didn't trust that. So Forrest experimented: he picked up a pebble and flipped it into the smooth water.

  Enormous teeth snapped out of the water and caught the pebble before it splashed. Then the water was still again. It had happened so quickly that he wasn't sure he had actually seen it, but he concluded that swimming would not be a good idea.

  “We might dissolve into floating souls, and condense again on the other side,” Imbri suggested.

  “I'm not sure that's in order. I think we should stay with the rules of this realm, while we are in it.”

  “I suppose so. I suppose dissolving into vapor might count the same as getting crunched by an ogre, and prevent us from returning to within half a year of this spot.”

  “That, too,” he agreed. He had actually been thinking of the ethics of it, assuming there were any. Physically it seemed possible; after all, she had dissolved to send the dragons their distracting dream. But it seemed unwise to tempt the limits.

  He couldn't reach the drawbridge from this side, so couldn't cross that way. The moat looked way too deep to fill in, even if he had a shovel, and the bank seemed too solid to dig anyway. But if this was like the castle in Xanth, there would be a way. He simply had to find it.

  He looked around. There was a brief cleared area around the moat, before the trees socked in tightly. There was room to walk. So he walked around the larger square, to see what he could see.

  Imbri walked with him. “I never had to worry about moats,” she said apologetically. “I just trotted across them, being insubstantial.”

  She looked at the nearest tree. “I don't suppose you could cut down a tree to make a bridge or raft?”

  “Cut down a tree?” he asked, horrified. “A living tree? I could never do that! I am a tree protector.”

  “Sorry. I wasn't thinking. But maybe if there is some deadwood?”

  “That would be fine. But I don't see any.”

  “Neither do I. But what's that over there?”

  He looked. “An upside-down bush. Someone must have pulled it out.

  Maybe we can help it.”

  They went to the bush, which was in an embarrassing predicament: its roots were in the air, and its leaves halfway buried in the ground, though it was a living plant. Forrest lifted it carefully, and set it down the right way up while Imbri used her hands to scrape dirt in around its base.

  But the moment Forrest let go, the bush flipped over, spraying dirt, and was upside down again.

  They contemplated this phenomenon. “It can't live and grow that way,” Forrest said. “It's a regular plant. It needs earth on its roots and sun on its leaves.”

  “What would make it reverse itself like that?”

  “Reverse,” he murmured, an idea homing in on him. Then he lifted the plant up again. “Dig down deep: there may be a piece of reverse wood there.”

  Imbri dug in the earth, and in a moment found it: a fair sized stick.

  She set it on the ground, and the green grass turned red in its vicinity. Then she dug out a place for the bush, and Forrest set it in.

  She packed the earth around it, and this time it stayed put.

  “I'm sure it will be more comfortable now,” Forrest said, satisfied.

  “You really do have a feeling for plants,” Imbri said.

  “Yes. It comes from associating so long with a tree. I don't like to see green growing things abused. That's why I'm on this quest, after all.”

  “Yes.” She looked thoughtful again.

  “We'll have to put this reverse wood where it won't do any more mischief,” Forrest said. He picked up the wood. It didn't affect him, because he had no magic talent to reverse. Of course reverse wood was funny stuff; sometimes it did reverse things in unexpected ways.

  Then another notion hovered around his head. “Imbri-do you suppose there could be any magic in that water?”

  Magic?” she asked blankly.

  “Let's find out.” He tossed the stick into the water in front of the lifted drawbridge.

  Then water quivered, then solidified. It wasn't frozen, just solid.

  Forrest set one foot on it, then the other. The water was now like ground. Its natural liquidity had been reversed, in this section.

  Imbri joined him. “You solved it!” she exclaimed. “I would never have thought of that.”

  “I almost didn't,” he admitted. “But usually things are as they are for a reason, at least around the Good Magician's castle. I'm glad the re
verse wood didn't turn the water into fire.”

  They reached the inner bank. But the drawbridge remained up, and its planks blocked off the main entrance. So they walked to the left, which had the green haze of To, and rounded the corner of the castle.

  There was an odd procession of people garbed in black. Several of them were carrying a large long and evidently heavy box, which was closed.

  “What is this?” Forrest asked, perplexed by the scene.

  “I think I know,” Imbri said. “It's a funeral.”

  “A funeral? Who died?”

  “I don't know. But that looks like a coffin.”

  “I don't want to get mixed up in death!”

  “Then this must not be the right way.”

  They backed off, and went into the yellow haze of From. They rounded that corner.

  There was an amazing assemblage of big white long-legged birds.

  “Storks!” Imbri exclaimed, identifying them. “What are they doing here?”

  “Same thing the funeral is doing here,” Forrest suggested. “When we walked around outside the moat I didn't see either. They appeared after we crossed the moat. It's another Challenge.”

  “It must be a Challenge,” she agreed. “But a strange one. What are we supposed to do with either a funeral or a group of storks?”

  “I wonder. There must be something. Do you suppose we could question them?”

  “I suppose we could try. They will cooperate to exactly the extent they are supposed to.”

  So they stepped around and hailed the nearest stork. “Will you talk with us?” Forrest inquired.

  “Sorry, don't have time. I'm too busy watching the screen for blips.”

  “Blips?”

  “Signals. If I miss one, the supervisor will pull my tail feathers out.

  One feather for each blip I miss. That hurts.”

  “Well, could we help watch your screen while we talk?”

  The stork considered. “It's highly irregular.”

  “But not forbidden,” Forrest said. “We'll help, and the supervisor can pull out one of our feathers, or whatever, if we miss any.”

  “Very well,” the stork agreed. “Hello: I am Stanley Stork. You are?”

  “Forrest Faun and Mare Imbrium.”