Xone of Contention

by Anthony, Piers

  “You did it,” Edsel said. “You made a living creature.”

  “See if yours works,” she said.

  He nodded. He spoke to the rabbit. “Return to your natural state.”

  The rabbit hopped onto the cleared dirt and flattened into the drawing.

  “Oh, you killed it!”

  That was an exaggeration, but he didn’t argue. “Then bring it back to life.”

  “I will.” She concentrated.

  Nothing happened.

  “You did focus the same way?” he asked.

  “Yes! It’s just not working now.”

  “Weird. I’d better try mine again.” He looked around. Would it work on a fallen leaf? He picked one up and focused.

  Nothing happened. So he tried it on a dead stick. Nothing. On a stone, with no result.

  “Our talents aren’t working,” Pia said, annoyed.

  “Let me verify this.” He brought the teller from his pocket. “What’s my talent?”

  “Summoning birds.”

  “But that’s not what I took from the island!”

  There was no answer. The teller was not much of a conversationalist.

  “Well, summon a bird,” Pia said, somewhat acidly.

  Edsel looked into the sky. There was no bird in sight. He tried anyway. “Bring me a bird.”

  There was a shuddering in the air. A distant cloud vibrated. A shape came zooming toward them. It was a bird, growing larger. Larger. And huge. Huger. And enormous. Enormouser. It threatened to blot out the sky.

  “Get rid of it!” Pia cried, covering he head with her hands.

  “I don’t think that’s my talent,” he said with more bravado than he felt.

  The monstrous bird braked in air, and they were almost blown away by its downdraft. It landed before them. It was bigger than both of them, by far. In fact it could have swallowed the two of them together.

  It settled down, rocked a few times, and tucked its head under one wing. Now it most resembled a boulder, twelve feet high.

  “It’s a roc,” Edsel said, catching on. “I summoned a roc!”

  “A pet roc,” she agreed, recovering.

  “A pet rock!” he exclaimed, laughing.

  Then she caught the pun too. “I should have known that’s the kind of bird you’d summon.”

  Still, it was dauntingly big. “What say we just let it be,” he suggested, slowly standing and backing off.

  “Agreed.”

  They sidled away. The pet roc remained bird-napping. Apparently his talent had summoned it, but did not require that it remain with him.

  Once they were well clear of the big bird, he tried again, this time specifying a small bird. Nothing happened. His talent had fizzled.

  “Let me try it,” Pia said, taking the teller from his hand. “What’s my talent?”

  “Making things thicker or thinner.”

  She glanced at a nearby tree. “Thinner,” she said, touching the trunk with one finger.

  The tree shook, and shrank. Suddenly it was half the thickness it had been.

  She went to another tree. “Thicker.”

  Nothing happened.

  “We seem to be blessed with one shot talents,” Edsel said. “They change each time we use them. Fortunately we have the teller, so we don’t have to guess what the next one is.”

  “That’s the way it was on the island,” she said. “But we haven’t been jumping.”

  “I guess the rule is different, off the island. But I don’t like this. We can’t ever be sure of our talents. If we didn’t have the teller, we’d be mostly confused.”

  “I’m mostly confused already,” she said, but she made a quick smile.

  Edsel pondered. “Give me the teller. I want to see what I have, and maybe keep it until I need it.”

  She handed him the teller, but then changed her mind. “Let me try it first. I don’t summon dangerous birds.”

  “That’s just the luck of the draw. Anyway, it is what it is; I just need to find out.”

  “No, I want to find out.”

  They were both tugging on the teller. “Okay,” he said, compromising. “Let’s both ask. One, two three.”

  “What’s my talent?” they asked together.

  “Making a wish come true,” the teller said.

  “But that’s only one talent,” Pia said. “Mine or his?”

  There was no answer. The teller was good at that. “This is simple to resolve,” Edsel said. “We can each make a wish, and see which one is granted.”

  “Do we have to wish out loud?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s try silent, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try aloud.”

  They each concentrated.

  Edsel’s Lemon motorcycle appeared, parked before him. He had gotten his wish!

  He turned to Pia—and paused. She had changed. Her clothing had become ill-fitting, but she looked much better than she had.

  She turned and saw him looking. “I wished for my sixteen year old figure back,” she said, adjusting her apparel.

  They had both gotten their wishes. Belatedly, he realized what that meant. “You could have wished we’d find our Companions.”

  Her eye caught the Lemon. “And you could have wished for something useful.”

  “I did wish for something useful! We can ride the bike instead of walking.”

  “On what highway?”

  He studied the landscape with new misgiving. It was bumpy and clogged with brush. They could walk through it, but the motorcycle would be constantly balked. “Maybe there’s a clearer area ahead,” he said lamely.

  “And maybe a gas station?”

  Fuel! How would he fill the tank? He hadn’t been thinking sensibly at all. Still, Pia had wasted her wish too. He was about to say something cutting, but looked again at her figure, and stifled it. She was stunning.

  “Maybe something will turn up,” he said. He went to the Lemon, checked it, and found it complete. He got on it and cranked on the motor. It roared into life. But he had nowhere to go. This wasn’t an off-trail bike, and in any event, this terrain wasn’t for any wheeled vehicle.

  He killed the motor and got off. But he couldn’t just leave the Lemon there. So he took it by the handlebars and pushed it forward. It was heavy, but he could handle it, and the rolling weight wasn’t bad on approximately level ground.

  “So have we used up our talents?” Pia asked.

  “Must have.” He took the teller. “What’s my talent?”

  “Bringing statues to life.”

  “But there’s no statue here.”

  There was as usual no answer. “Maybe you can make one,” Pia suggested. “The way I drew my picture.”

  Good idea. He parked the bike, took out his pen knife, lifted a stick, and carved it into a crude man form. “Come to life,” he said.

  The form moved. But it couldn’t say anything, because he hadn’t carved a mouth. He had wasted another talent.

  “My turn,” Pia said, taking the teller from his hand. “What’s my talent?”

  “Glaring daggers.”

  “It’s got you pegged!” Edsel exclaimed.

  She glared. A dagger shot from her eye and just missed his ear.

  He ducked, alarmed, and the other daggers missed by greater margins. Damn the literal nature of Xanth.

  He grabbed the teller. “What’s my talent?”

  “Controlling the emotions of others.”

  “Make Pia happy!” he cried.

  “You fool,” she laughed happily. “You just wasted another talent you should have saved for a mean monster.”

  She was right. He had once again acted without thinking. She couldn’t be mad at him, because he had made her happy, but the damage was done. He handed the teller to her. “Find out yours, and use it sensibly.”

  “I will.” She oriented on the disk. “What’s my talent?”

  “Summoning a friend.”

  She smiled. “Breanna!”

  A figure app
eared in the distance. “Pia! Is that you?”

  “Here!” Pia called happily.

  Breanna hurried up, followed by Justin. “We’ve been looking all over for you. We tried to follow your trail, but there wasn’t much. Are you all right?”

  “I am now. You know the way back to the enchanted path, right?”

  “For sure.” Breanna paused. “Pia—you look terrific. What happened?”

  “I got my sixteen year old figure back. I’m your age now.”

  “And twice as sexy,” Breanna agreed admiringly.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Justin demurred.

  “Why not?” Edsel asked. But the man averted his gaze, embarrassed. Oh, yes: holding hands.

  “We are certainly glad to see you,” Pia said cheerfully. “We were lost.”

  Justin looked at the motorcycle. “What is that thing?”

  “That’s my old Lemon,” Edsel said, with mixed feelings.

  “I must say I never saw a lemon or any other fruit like that.”

  “That’s its brand name.”

  “It was branded?”

  This wasn’t getting far. “It’s a Mundane machine. I got it for a wish, but I can’t use it here. In Mundania it could carry two people rapidly, a long way.”

  “Oh,” Justin said, clearly not understanding.

  “Let’s get moving toward safety,” Pia said joyfully. “We can explain everything as we go.”

  “Yes,” Breanna agreed. “And we must check in, so the others know you’re all right. It has been a day.”

  “But it will take time to get back to Com Passion’s cave,” Edsel said.

  “No, we can do it now. I have an ear.” She produced what looked like a human ear. “Speak into this. It’s connected to the O-Xone.”

  Pia took the ear. “This is Pia. Ed and I are okay.”

  The ear quivered, so that she almost dropped it. “Good, so are we,” Chlorine’s voice came.

  That was it. Pia returned the ear.

  They walked through the brush. Edsel pushed the Lemon, unwilling to give it up, though he knew that soon he would have to. They caught the two companions up on their recent adventures.

  “Oh, the Isle of Talents,” Justin said. “I know of it, though never knew its location. But your talents shouldn’t keep changing once you leave the Isle.”

  “We can use them only once,” Edsel said. “Then we have to ask the teller to identify the next one.”

  “The what?”

  He showed Justin the teller. The man shied away. “That’s a demon!”

  “A what?”

  “A demon. They aren’t all like Metria, you know. They can assume any form. Some specialize in specific mischief. This one must be changing your talents as you invoke it.”

  “Changing our talents!” Pia exclaimed, her happiness somewhat tempered by outrage.

  “Yes. My guess is that it masks your inherent talent, drawing on its power to provide a temporary new one. Get rid of it, and you’ll probably have your original talent back.”

  “Gladly,” Edsel said. He dropped the disk to the ground.

  It bounced back like a yo-yo, returning to his hand. Angry, he threw it violently away. It curved in air like a boomerang and returned.

  He set it on the ground and put a rock on top of it. But when he retreated, it wiggled its way free and snapped back to stick to his sleeve.

  “I suspect you can part with it only by giving it to another person,” Justin said.

  Edsel looked at Pia. They had been handing it back and forth. They had never tried to dispose of it. “There’s got to be another way,” Edsel said.

  “There should be,” Justin agreed. “Probably you can return it to the place you found it. That’s often the way of such things.”

  “The Isle of Talents,” Pia said. “Bleep!” Her magic happiness was weathering.

  “Nevertheless, I believe we should return it there,” Justin said. “Breanna and I do not dare to set foot on it, for obvious reason, so you will have to do it yourself. But we will help you in whatever way we can.”

  That made sense. “Then let’s head for the isle,” Edsel said. “We know where it is. I want to get this done and get out of here before dark.”

  “Not to worry,” Breanna said. “My talent is to see in the dark.”

  “I don’t want to get near that dark castle,” Pia said.

  “But there’s no castle in this region.”

  Pia exchanged a glance with Edsel. “It disappeared when the crack of dawn came,” he explained. “It may reappear at night.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Breanna said. “But let’s take care of the teller first.”

  “Maybe we can use the teller to help,” Justin said. “If you care to run through several talents until a useful one turns up—”

  “But why would it help us to get rid of it?”

  “Demons aren’t necessarily intelligent. Often they do what they do without thought.”

  So Edsel tried running through talents, and was in luck: he got the ability to find the very best route to any objective. “What’s the best route to the boat?” he asked.

  “That isn’t right,” Justin said. “You did not define the boat.”

  “Any boat will do, dear,” Breanna said.

  “Not the Censor Ship.”

  “For sure,” she agreed. “But he’s already invoked it, so we’ll just have to see.”

  “This way,” Edsel said with certainty, facing the thickest brush. “Toward the boat, in a small meander.”

  “A small meander,” Pia said, but didn’t protest, because the talents did seem to work.

  They turned and cut through the brush toward the place where the boat was, as none of them cared to risk swimming in the lake.

  They found a path, and followed it. That made pushing the Lemon much easier. But the path led straight to a tangle tree.

  “We should have known,” Breanna said. “You can’t trust wilderness paths.”

  “But my talent indicates this is the best,” Edsel said, perplexed.

  “What’s that caught in its tentacles?” Pia asked.

  Breanna peered. “That’s Para!” she cried. “The duck-footed boat.”

  “A what?” Edsel asked.

  “We met it by the Isle of Women last year,” Breanna said. “It was traveling between a pair of docks. It’s really nice. We’ve got to save it.”

  Edsel appreciated the pun: pair of docks = paradox. “But what good is a—a boat with feet?”

  “You’ll see. This is the boat your talent led you to, and it’s much better than the other. How can we rescue it?”

  “Perhaps we can arrange an exchange,” Justin said.

  Edsel laughed. “How about my Lemon for the boat?”

  “We can try,” Justin said doubtfully.

  Pia helped Edsel move the Lemon into position just beyond the range of the tangle tree’s tentacles. Then he stood to the side, while she sat on it and smiled. Pretty girls made anything salable, and she was excruciatingly pretty now.

  “Tangle Tree,” Edsel said. “How would you like to trade this for that?” He gestured to the Lemon, then to the tangled boat.

  The tree considered. Edsel could tell by the way its tentacles twitched. Then it released the boat. The boat promptly got its dozen or so feet under it and ran away from the tree.

  “Para!” Breanna cried. The boat ran to her, and she hugged its wooden prow. “I’m so glad we found you in time.”

  The boat was evidently glad too. It curled its webbed feet and quivered.

  “However,” Justin said to it. “We feel that one favor deserves another. We have rescued you; will you transport us?”

  The boat slapped a foot against the ground, and stood still. That seemed to be agreement.

  Meanwhile, Edsel wheeled the Lemon toward the tangle tree. “Here’s your bike,” he said sadly. “Though I’m not sure what use you will have for it.”

  The tentacles shook. “Retreat!”
Justin called. “The tree is angry.”

  Edsel quickly backed off. “What’s the problem? We made a deal.”

  “I think I understand,” Justin said. “There may have been a misunderstanding. The tree thought you meant Pia.”

  Oops. Pia had sat on the bike, decorating it, as he gestured to it. The tree would not have had much experience with Mundane marketing techniques.

  “But I’m not about to be going to go get gobbled by that monster,” Pia protested.

  “Then it appears we are reneging on the understanding,” Justin said. “That is not good policy.”

  “For sure,” Breanna agreed. “We’ve got to work something out.”

  Edsel had a notion. “Suppose Pia uses the teller to get a talent that will protect her from the tree, so it can’t eat her?”

  “I don’t want to stay forever in its tangles either,” Pia protested. Still, she took the teller. “What’s my talent?”

  “Hearing anything close by.”

  She cocked her head. “I hear bugs talking to each other through their antennae,” she said. “But that won’t help me. What’s my talent?”

  “To be ineffably charming.”

  “That won’t help me either! I—”

  “Wait,” Justin said. “It might after all help. If your talent is to be charming beyond the capacity of mere words to express, perhaps you could charm the tree into accepting the machine.”

  Pia considered. “Would I have to get within its reach?”

  “I regret that you probably would, as the full measure of your charm is incapable of being verbalized.”

  “No, she could just let it look at her,” Breanna said. “That’s not words.”

  “Perhaps so,” Justin agreed doubtfully.

  “Well, I’ll try it,” Pia said, just as dubious. She stepped close to Edsel and the Lemon, and struck a pose. It was a charming pose. “Tangler,” she said dulcetly. “May I call you that? I was just the decoration for the motorcycle, not the offering. It was a misunderstanding. But you know, that machine is as useful to you as the quack footed boat. I mean, you can’t eat either one. But there’s nothing else in Xanth like the Lemon, so maybe it would be a tourist attraction or something. So maybe it’s a fair deal after all. Doesn’t that make sense to you?” She smiled winningly.

  Edsel stared. Pia had always been able to turn on the charm, when she wanted to, but this was moreso than she had ever been before. It wasn’t just that she was lovely, in her sixteen year old perfect body. There was an intangible aura about her that made her ultimately winsome and sweet. Justin and Breanna felt it too; he could see them watching as avidly as he was. The magic was truly working. She could charm tears from a stone.