Golem in the Gears Page 10

  Unfortunately, Grundy was not at all sure he was up to the challenge. He was, after all, only the height of the span of a human man’s spread hand. He was definitely no hero!

  Now it was dusk. It was time to fetch the bed and Snortimer, and start on their swim to the dread Ivory Tower.

  7

  Ivory Tower

  They traveled south along the coast. The Monster was so big and steady in the water that he was like a floating island; the bed simply perched on the barnacled back without falling off, and Grundy and Snortimer perched on the bed. The Monster couldn’t talk to them while swimming, because his snoot was mostly underwater, but that was all right; Grundy had had his fill of conversation for now.

  Progress was slow, however; the Monster was no speed freak. The voyage required several days. At dawn they camped on an isolated promontory that the Monster assured them was safe; there was an inlet that was almost a cave, providing deep shade for the bed, which made Snortimer more comfortable. The Monster swam out to the deep ocean and fed on plankton, while Grundy found some edible lichen in assorted candy flavors. Snortimer had no trouble; he fed on the dust under the bed, as he always had. He had evolved from dust, and to dust he would return, when Ivy grew up and stopped believing in him. That was the tragedy of all Bed Monsters.

  As they wended farther south, the complexion of the shore changed. The normal greens and browns of trees faded, to be replaced by tan, and then yellow, and finally bright gold. “What’s with the land?” Grundy asked when the Monster paused.

  “Didn’t you know? This is the Gold Coast.”

  Oh. That didn’t explain much, but Grundy didn’t want to admit his further ignorance, so he did not inquire again.

  At length they hove into view of the dread Ivory Tower. It was, Grundy discovered, a lighthouse. A yellow beam of light swung around from its apex, brightening the heaving surface of the sea and the projecting rocks of the coast. This was a lonely region, forbidding and unpretty. Mundanes might find golden land beautiful, but golems had better taste. Grundy would never have come here, had he not been on Quest.

  They paused at a distance. Grundy knew that the Monster dared not approach too close, lest the Sea Hag spy him. The next phase of this adventure was up to Grundy himself.

  It was possible, the Monster had assured him, to reach the base of the Tower from the land, by crossing the shoals at low tide. There would not be much time, because the moment the tide reversed, that section would fill in with water, returning the Tower to its island status. However, since Snortimer could climb a sheer cliff face, Grundy wasn’t worried about that aspect. Of greater concern was the whereabouts of the Sea Hag. Was she in the Tower now, or elsewhere?

  It was fairly high tide now. The Monster nudged in close to the golden shore and landed them near a golden grotto, lifting the bed into it with a flipper. It was an awkward operation, but successful; now Snortimer was secure under the bed in a deeply shadowed nook, just the way he liked it. Still, he complained: “I miss Ivy’s cute little feet.”

  “The sooner we get this Quest done, the sooner she’ll be using this bed again,” Grundy reminded him. “If you don’t find romance first.”

  “Um, to be sure,” Snortimer muttered, as a splash of water drenched the bed. He did not sound entirely satisfied.

  Grundy decided to wait and watch for a while. The Monster believed that the Hag made regular trips to and from the Tower, though he had never actually observed this, being too nervous to remain long enough to watch. In fact, the Monster was already gone, having swum to deeper waters to feed. He would be back in due course, to help rescue the damsel in distress—but Grundy realized that it was up to the Golem to work out the proper strategy.

  He was in luck. On the afternoon of the first day he saw a rowboat coming around the Tower. Evidently the Hag had it moored by the door at the base, and was now heading to land for supplies. If she stayed away until low tide, Grundy could cross to the Tower and enter, and perhaps rescue Rapunzel, just like that. Probably the Hag locked the door from the outside so that the girl couldn’t escape. If he could just find a way to unlock it—

  He waited nervously as the day waned. The Hag did not return. He assumed it was the Hag, though he had not been able to get a clear view of the figure in the boat, because it could be no one else. Certainly Rapunzel wouldn’t be going shopping! But if the Hag had someone else to do her bidding—

  No. It had to be her!

  Meanwhile, the tide was going out. At dusk the bar was beginning to show; within another hour they would be able to cross. Still the boat did not return; maybe the Hag planned to return in the morning. That would be so convenient for Grundy that he hardly believed it.

  As night became firmly established, he roused Snortimer. They had to leave the bed in the grotto; it was under cover and high enough so that high tide would not reach it. But of course they did not plan to remain long at the Tower; this deed was best done quickly.

  As the water receded farther, they made the crossing. There were still inlets and puddles to hurdle, but Snortimer could handle them. Grundy judged that they would have no more than an hour; longer, and the tide would trap them.

  It was a farther distance than it had seemed. The terrain of the bar was not even; it was rough and craggy. Even at ebb tide, the waves crashed against the rocks. To a regular man this might not have been too bad, but each wave was about nine times as high relative to Grundy. He could be swamped in water that was only knee-deep to a man. Once again he was reminded of his basic inadequacy as a hero; he simply lacked the stature!

  It took twenty minutes to make it to the base of the tower. They scrambled around it—and were dismayed.

  There was no door. The wall was a smooth cylinder throughout. How had the Hag gotten out?

  Grundy peered up into the sky. The Tower seemed immensely tall from this vantage, poking up almost to the restless night clouds. The only aperture seemed to be at the top: a window not far below the rotating beam, facing seaward.

  “She must have a ladder,” Grundy concluded glumly. But then he remembered his steed’s ability. “We’ll just have to climb up it.” The prospect scared him, for it looked to be a very long way up, but what alternative did they have?

  He held on tight, and Snortimer took hold of the wall. The huge hairy hands scraped across the polished ivory—and found no resistance.

  The ivory was simply too slippery for Snortimer to scale. The cliff of the Gap Chasm had been rough, with a network of little cracks and crevices that assured a grip; this wall had none. They could not get up that way.

  “Oh, zombie-slush!” Grundy swore, frustrated.

  There was a sound, far above, as of a window being opened. “Is that you, Mother Sweetness?” a gentle voice called.

  Mother Sweetness? What nonsense was this?

  “Why are you back early?” the voice called.

  Grundy had to answer. “I—I am a visitor,” he called. “May I come up and see you?”

  There was a dulcet gasp. “Oh, I dare not talk to strangers!”

  Naturally the Hag had warned this innocent young thing against strangers! “But I have come a long way just to talk with you!” Grundy called.

  “No, Mother Sweetness is very firm about that. No strangers!” There was the sound of a window being closed.

  Grundy thought desperately. “I’m not exactly a stranger!” he called. “I’m from Ivy!”

  “Ivy!” The window reopened. “My pun-pal!”

  “The same! I’m on a Quest for her, and I must talk with you! It’s very important!”

  She hesitated. “Well, I suppose for a moment—”

  “But I don’t know how to get in,” Grundy called. “I can’t find the door.”

  There was a tinkle of laughter. “Silly! There is no door! Ivory Towers don’t have accesses to the real world.”

  “But then how does anyone get in?”

  “Just a moment while I let down my hair.”

  “Rapunzel, t
his is no time to do your hair!” Grundy cried.

  Again her laughter tinkled down upon them. She seemed to be a merry soul. “It’s for you, of course. That’s how Mother Sweetness comes up.”

  Then a hank of fiber fell down to dangle just shy of the ground, startling them. Grundy reached out to touch it, and found it composed of fine silken fibers. It was her hair!

  He stared up. The tower seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, and the hair dangled all the way down it. What amazing tresses she possessed! But though he could climb well enough for a few feet, he knew this was beyond him; his arms would give out before he was more than a fraction of the way up, and he would fall back to the rocky base. If the Sea Hag could readily climb that distance, she had to be one tough old creature!

  Then Snortimer took hold. He, naturally, had no trouble; he could climb anything, once he got a grip on it. Grundy mounted, and up they swarmed, virtually running up the side of the Tower. In a few minutes they were near the top.

  Belatedly, it occurred to Grundy that the sight of Snortimer might alarm the girl. After all, Snortimer was the Monster Under the Bed, a figure of terror for most young folk. “Close your eyes as we come in!” he called.

  “Close my eyes?” she asked, perplexed. “But—”

  How could he explain? But then he realized that they had another problem. Her chamber was lighted; Snortimer could not enter! “Or turn out the light,” he said. “It—it’s blinding me.”

  “Oh.” In a moment the light went out; evidently she had the lamp within reach.

  Snortimer scrambled on up in the dark, and into the window. The absence of light solved both problems neatly!

  But once they were inside, Rapunzel wanted to light the lamp again. “If I turn it low, your eyes will be able to adjust,” she said reasonably.

  “Wait!” Grundy cried. “The truth is, I didn’t come alone. My friend—he can’t face the light.”

  “Your friend?” she asked. “Who is he?”

  “He is known as the—well, he lives under the bed.”

  “Nobody lives under my bed,” she said.

  “Under Ivy’s bed.” Grundy explained somewhat lamely. “He—he’s my steed. He can climb better than I can, because he’s got more hands.”

  “Ivy’s bed?”

  “She’s a child, and all children have—things under their beds.”

  “Oh, you must mean Snortimer!” Rapunzel exclaimed. “Now I remember; she’s mentioned him.”

  “But he can’t come out into the light, and we couldn’t bring the bed up here, so—”

  “He can borrow my bed,” she said warmly. “I’ve always wanted a Monster Under the Bed!”

  “I don’t know—” Grundy said. “I think he can only live under Ivy’s bed.”

  “Nonsense. I’m her pun-pal. That makes my bed just as good.” She moved about in the darkness. “Where are you, Snortimer? Let me show you my bed.”

  “I don’t think—” Snortimer said to Grundy in Monster-tongue.

  “Now I’ll be most unhappy if you don’t try my bed,” Rapunzel said, beginning to sound unhappy. “I’ve never had a Monster Under my Bed, even to visit; Mother Sweetness never would allow it. Whatever will I do, if you refuse?”

  “Better at least try it, Snort,” Grundy mumbled, feeling awkward. This was the last kind of discussion he had anticipated. But when Rapunzel sounded happy, she sounded very very happy, and when she sounded unhappy, it was awful.

  Grudgingly, Snortimer moved across the dark chamber to where she indicated her bed was. A surprised snort followed. “I can use it!” Snortimer exclaimed. “It’s comfortable! Grade-A dust!”

  “In that case, perhaps we can light the lamp,” Grundy said. “He’s safe, under the bed.”

  In a moment, the light came on; evidently she had a magic match. At first it was indeed blinding; then he adapted.

  Beautiful was hardly the word to describe Rapunzel; it was inadequate. She was as lovely a creature as he had encountered. She seemed to be about twenty years old, with eyes that shifted colors in the angles of the shadows, and hair like endless silk, ranging in shade from almost black at her head to bleached white at the end of the tresses. She wore an old-fashioned Mundanian skirt and bodice, with velvet slippers. A series of stout combs buckled her tresses in place; she was busy hauling them in and fastening them in place, hank by hank. Grundy wondered that the weight of it didn’t drag her head down to the floor. But her hair seemed to compact as it curled against her head, so that no matter how much of it she piled on, it remained of only ordinary volume. Obviously her magic talent was her hair; it was both infinite and finite.

  “Oh—I thought you’d be larger,” she said.

  “I guess I forgot to tell you,” Grundy said. “I’m a golem.”

  “A golem?”

  “I was fashioned of wood and rag and string,” he explained. “Several decades ago. Later I managed to become alive, but my size didn’t change.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I like you the way you are.”

  “You do?” This, too, caught him by surprise.

  “Of course. There are advantages to being the right size.” And abruptly she was his size.

  Grundy stared. Where a full-sized human girl had been, there now stood one slightly smaller than he was. She was identical in every respect, and every bit as lovely, only smaller. “How—?” he asked, dazed.

  “I’m of mixed elfin/human stock,” she explained. “It all started four centuries ago, when my great-to-the-nth-degree grandmother Bluebell Elf met this handsome human barbarian warrior and used adaptation magic on him, for a tryst. Ever since, their descendants have been able to shift from her size to his, and in between, and beyond. So I can be anywhere from your size, which is smaller than an elf, to giant size, which is larger than human, though that’s about the limit. Some of my ancestors have married elves, and some human folk, depending on their tastes, but the magic has carried through. Size really doesn’t make much difference to me, but I’ve tended to stick to human size because that’s the way Mother Sweetness is. Also, my hair might not reach all the way down, if I were too small, though I’m not sure about that; it does keep growing, and I haven’t tried it in that size recently.”

  “Bluebell Elf,” Grundy repeated, remembering something. “I know a human man from about that time, named Jordan. He says he—”

  “Yes, he’s the one!” she exclaimed, clapping her little hands enthusiastically. “I always wondered what became of him, after he left the Elven tree. Because my first female ancestor was elven, she never knew more about the man, because he was the roving kind, as barbarians are.”

  “That I can tell you,” Grundy said, pleased. He liked this woman very well. “But there is something more serious I need to tell you first. I’m afraid it will be very difficult for you to accept.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so!” she said cheerily. She came to sit by him on the floor, as the furniture was too large for either of them, now. Her proximity had an electric effect on him, for not only was she the loveliest creature of his size he had encountered, she was treating him exactly like a person. “It’s so delightful to have company—I’ve never had a visitor before, you know—and even a Monster Under my Bed, even if it’s only a borrowed one. It does get lonely, being alone all the time, when Mother Sweetness isn’t here. Of course I do correspond, and exchange things with Ivy, though I don’t have anything very good to send her compared to the wonderful things she sends me—”

  “The wonderful—?”

  She jumped up, even prettier in her lithe activity than she had been when sitting. “See, I have them here on a table. Here, I’ll have to change to reach it.” She shifted to human size, reached down her hand, and picked Grundy up, setting him gently on the table. Her fingers were soft and fine and smelled faintly of bubblebath. “Now hold my hand,” she said, extending one finger.

  Grundy took hold of the finger—even the nail was smooth and sweetly shaped—and suddenl
y she was small again, and with him, holding hands. “I can’t do it by myself,” she explained. “I have to stand where I change, if you see what I mean. I can get down by jumping and changing in midair, but it’s hard to get up without breaking the table.” She smiled brilliantly. “But with another person, then I can be with that person—and so here I am, on the table, with you.”

  Indeed she was, and Grundy was mightily impressed. He had never been with a creature like this before, and he liked it very well. His whole limited life seemed to assume more significance, just because of her presence.

  They faced a substantial collection of oddments: bits of string, pebbles, sand, flower petals, fragments of pottery, a paperclip, a Mundane penny, a fragment of colored glass, and so on. These were the ordinary things that Ivy had sent in exchange for all the beautiful puns Rapunzel had sent. Yet the woman seemed to be quite pleased with them.

  “I’m not sure that what you send her is inferior to what you have here,” he said cautiously.

  “But these are things of the real world!” she exclaimed happily. “All I have to send are used puns, and they’re very cheap. See, there’s some piled up in the corner.” She gestured, and Grundy saw assorted knick-knacks there. One was a green bottle; another a branch of a tree, and another was a ball formed of fingers and hands.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  “Oh, one’s a club soda; I haven’t sent her that because I don’t want her to get clubbed. That branch is an evergreen; it turns anything it touches green—you can see how the floor has become green there. And a handball, and tail-lights—”

  “I understand,” Grundy said, seeing the lighted tails.

  “Pun-things hardly relate to the real world,” Rapunzel continued. “But these artifacts Ivy sends—each a little bit of her reality—how I wish I could go there! I want so much to join the real world.”

  “I would like to take you there,” Grundy said, hardly believing that it could be so easy.

  “Oh, I can’t go,” she said, frowning, and it was as though a cloud passed over the lamp, dimming the room. “I have to mind the lamp.”