Man From Mundania Read online

  They resumed their trek. Just beyond the cave they turned a corner, and spied what they had missed the day before because of the distraction of the storm: a flight of steps rising to the higher ledge! The configuration of the mountain hadn't changed; they just hadn't been paying attention. That was a relief to Grey.

  But the middle of this stairway was broken. Evidently a boulder or something had fallen here, and smashed out a section.

  They had no choice: they had to scramble over the debris. Grey led the way, proceeding very carefully, finding secure handholds and footholds. The very jaggedness of it helped, because sharp edges were easier to grasp than smooth planes. He had to work his way up an almost vertical section, but got hold of the undamaged step above and managed to haul himself up. Then he lay on the step and reached down to help haul Ivy up. She was fairly athletic, which was a quality he liked, and made it up without too much trouble.

  Then they dusted themselves off and moved up the remaining steps to the upper ledge.

  Now the mystery unraveled. This ledge actually began here! It dead-ended below, and proceeded on up. It was as if it were the continuation of the ledge they had been on before, but had gotten sheered away and set lower.

  Perhaps this had happened long ago, and later someone had built the stairway to reach it, and still later the boulder had smashed the stairs. Grey wondered just how old this mountain was!

  They walked up the new ledge, coming to the point above the cave they had spent the night in. Here there was a right angle in the ledge and in the rock below, almost like the prow of a ship.

  Grey stopped abruptly. He gazed out across the plain again. Sure enough—it had changed some more. The grass and trees were different, and the distant mountains had come closer.

  “This thing's a ship!” he exclaimed. “It's sailing through the valley!”

  Ivy considered. “Yes, I suppose it is. I told you things are strange in the gourd.”

  That set him back. He was arguing the case for magic!

  There had to be some other explanation. Maybe the mists of the prior day had concealed most of the surrounding scenery, and it appeared to change as those mists cleared.

  “Let's get on up to the top,” he said gruffly.

  They resumed their walk. Grey's legs were tired, and he knew Ivy felt the same. But the realization that they were back on track buoyed them both, and they made good progress.

  Then the ledge became another bridge. This time it was no partial thing; it was a far-ranging span that narrowed alarmingly at the apex. Grey looked at it and quailed.

  “Now all we need is a st—” Ivy began with disgust.

  “Don't say it! It might come! The last thing we want is a—a you-know-what!” He refused to say the word “storm.”

  She smiled, a trifle grimly. “I think your unbelief is wavering, Grey! You are right; it is not smart to speak the names of those you don't want to hear. But even without that, how are we going to cross? I don't feel that steady on my feet.”

  She spoke for them both! “It gets so narrow—maybe we can sit astride it there, and sort of hump across.”

  “Hump across?”

  “I've done it on schoolyard mounted logs,” he explained. “You sort of put your hands down and lift your body and bump forward. You can move along pretty well when you get the hang of it. If you lose your balance, you just lock your legs around the log. You can't fall, really, if you keep your head.” He sat down and demonstrated, awkwardly, on the flat surface.

  “How clever!” Ivy exclaimed, delighted. “Let's go!”

  Grey led the way again. This wasn't because he was brave, but because he just couldn't see making Ivy take a risk he wouldn't take himself. He pretended it was routine, but the truth was he was tight with fear. His hands were sweating, and his jaw was clenched; he hoped it didn't show.

  He walked as far as he dared, because that was the most efficient way to travel. Then he got down on hands and knees. When the arch became too narrow for that, he put his legs down and straddled the stone. He put his hands behind and heaved, humping his body forward.

  It worked. He kept doing it until the bridge peaked, descended, and widened. He tried not to look down, because that made him unpleasantly dizzy; there was nothing down there except cruel stone, far below.

  When the stone became too wide he leaned forward until he lay on it, then lifted his legs, got to hands and knees, and moved on. It wasn't far on the downslope, but it was a relief to be there.

  At last he reached the solid mountain again, and turned.

  There was Ivy, not far behind him. She was not as nervous about falling as he, because of her belief in magic, but he remained nervous about her.

  “That was fan,” she exclaimed as she caught up to him. But some of the green of her hair seemed to be on her face, and he knew she had felt almost as queasy as he.

  This climb was certainly a challenge!

  They walked on up the path. The mountain was comparatively slender here, but high, and the ledge was smaller. They had to go single file. This time Ivy took the lead, because he wanted to be in position to catch her if she slipped and started to fall. The path was increasingly steep, without steps, and still lacked any kind of guardrail;

  he would have been happier crawling up it, but that would have been too slow. Night was closing in.

  Then out of the gloomy sky came figures in the air.

  “Oopsy!” Ivy said, spying them. “Wyverns! Probably they forage here, picking off helpless climbers.”

  “Such as us?” Grey asked, trying to suppress dread.

  He knew what wyverns were: small winged, fire-breathing dragons. Of course he didn't believe in them—but certainly there was something ugly in the air, and that was apt to be just as bad for them as a fantasy creature.

  “Yes. But don't worry; I'll use my talent to foil them.”

  “But your talent's Enhancement! Won't that just make them even more formidable?” Again, he was trying to make her see reason without actually expressing his disbelief in her magic. At some point they would have to have this out—but not way up here on this treacherously exposed path!

  “Not necessarily. I'll show you.”

  The flying figures loomed close—and they did indeed look like dragons. But of course such things could be mocked up and even be made to fly. This was obviously a most intricately fashioned setting, so such threats were feasible. Certainly those creatures, whatever their true nature, could be dangerous. He didn't see how enhancing them could help foil them, assuming it could be done at all.

  Ivy stood facing the dragons. She seemed to be concentrating. The dragons approached even faster than before, their beady eyes glinting, plumes of smoke trailing from their nostrils.

  The lead dragon oriented and accelerated, flying directly toward them. It jetted a column of fire. Grey started to scramble away, not wanting to get fried—but Ivy didn't move, and he couldn't leave her behind. So he forced himself to wait, hoping that she did know what she was doing.

  The jet of fire missed. Then the dragon, looking surprised, missed also; it shot right past them, so close that they were buffeted by the hot breeze of its passing. What had happened?

  The second dragon winged in toward them. It too missed with both fire and teeth, seeming as amazed as Grey was by this. Then the third one.

  “What happened?” Grey asked.

  “I told you. I Enhanced them.”

  “But—”

  “I made them faster. So they flew faster than usual, and whipped their heads around faster, and fired faster. So their aim was off. They can't score on us until they get adjusted to their new powers—and they won't have them when they're not attacking us.”

  Grey worked it out. He had driven a car once that was larger and more powerful than he was used to. Then he had come to a turn in the road, and almost careened off the road because his reflexes were wrong. He had made hasty adjustments, knowing that he could quickly wreck himself if he didn't. It could hav
e been the same for the dragons. It would require precise timing and coordination of vectors to score with fire while on the wing, and if that timing was off, there would be no score. So what Ivy said made sense.

  Assuming that she could really do what she claimed.

  But that was magic.

  “Let's get on before they recover,” Ivy said.

  Good suggestion! They walked up the path while the dragons reoriented. When the dragons made their second strafing runs, they misjudged the range again and gave up in disgust. “See? I don't like to use my talent frivolously, but for self-defense it's all right,” Ivy said.

  Grey was just glad that the creatures had been programmed to miss! The threat had seemed real enough, and he could hardly wait to get off this mountain! He would try to reason with Ivy about the matter of the dragons at another time.

  The path looped around the mountain again, but the diameter of the mountain was now so small that the circuit did not take much time. They walked up the last stretch to the castle itself, crossing one final bridge. The castle was, after all, full size, no longer looking like a dollhouse.

  They paused at the great wooden door, and looked back.

  From this height they could see far across the landscape. It was definitely a riverscape; they were sailing (without sails) upriver toward distant lofty peaks that reflected red in the late sunlight.

  Grey shook his head. He did not believe in magic, of course, but certainly this was a marvelous setting! Probably only this mountain was genuine; the rest would be formed from some kind of projection on a surrounding screen. As amusement parks went, this was the best he had encountered! It was too bad that it was too persuasive for some. Ivy would be a terrific girl if she only could rid herself of her belief in Xanth!

  Ivy turned to him. “You've been great. Grey,” she said, and quickly kissed him.

  How he wished he could believe in Xanth!

  Chapter 5

  River

  They had finally reached the door to the castle.

  Ivy was much relieved; she had been afraid that Grey would panic and fall when the wyverns attacked. She had even hesitated to explain in too much detail how she could nullify them, because she did not want him to have to come to terms with the concept of magic while they were dangerously exposed. Suppose he spooked and fell off the ledge? It was better to wait until things were more secure.

  So now she merely kissed him and told him that he had been great. Indeed, he had been, considering that he did not believe in magic; it must have taken real courage to carry on in the face of that doubt! He should be a great guy, once he got over his confusion and saw Xanth for what it was.

  She addressed the door: “Hey, door, don't you know me?”

  The door didn't answer. Oops—she had forgotten that her father. King Dor, wasn't here. It was his talent to speak to the inanimate and to have it answer in the human language. He had resided so long in Castle Roogna that his magic had infused those parts of the castle that he used a lot. Thus she always talked to the castle door, and it normally opened for her because it recognized her. But this wasn't really Castle Roogna; this was an imitation one, a setting in the realm of bad dreams. So her father wasn't here, and his magic had not rubbed off.

  “Uh, doors don't know people,” Grey said delicately. “You have to turn the knob.”

  Ivy was getting tired of his patronizing attitude about magic. So she decided to make a small demonstration. She concentrated on the door, enhancing its affinity to her father. It was an emulation of the real front door of Castle Roogna, so there was a basis for this; if she made it even more like the real door, it would be able to respond in the manner of the original.

  Then she spoke to it again. “Door, if you don't open this instant, I'll kick your shin panel!”

  The door hastily swung open.

  It was very satisfying to see Grey's gape.

  Then he recovered. “Oh—it wasn't locked. Must have been blown open.”

  “By what wind?” Ivy inquired sweetly. The air was now quite still.

  But Grey merely shrugged. The door might not be locked, but his mind was. It was most annoying.

  They stepped in. The entrance hall was empty, of course. Ivy had seen many people and creatures she knew, scattered around the Enchanted Mountain, but rather than confuse things she had asked them to fade out. Since they were all ghosts, they had obliged. That way she had seen nothing that Grey hadn't seen, which made the climb easier. The same was true here in the castle, and it seemed better to leave it that way.

  “It's empty!” Grey said, as if surprised.

  “It isn't the real castle,” she reminded him. “This is the dream realm, with settings for all the bad dreams. So there aren't any folk here except when they come to make up a dream concerning Castle Roogna, and then they aren't real folk, just the gourd actors.”

  He looked at her as if about to Say Something for Her Own Good, but managed to stifle it. “So where do we go from here?”

  “Wherever this sailing mountain takes us,” she replied.

  “We should keep watch, and when it passes some region I recognize, we can get off and I'll lead us home to the real Castle Roogna.”

  Again that Own Good expression crossed his face, but again it was displaced by Not Yet. “But if this is the—the realm of dreams, you won't be able to reach the real, uh, Xanth from here.”

  “Yes I will—when I see a section of the gourd I recognize. I've been through it before, you know. So if I see the sea of castor oil—” But she did not care to complete that thought; the notion of diving into that awful stuff made her sick.

  “A sea of castor oil?” he asked blankly.

  “Well, maybe it's just a lake of it. You know—the oil that leaks from castors, those little wheels that move furniture around. They feed it to children to make them feel bad.”

  “I remember,” he said, making a face. “We get something similar from beans. That's the stuff of bad dreams, all right!”

  “Wouldn't you know it—in Mundania it's the bad things that grow on trees!” she exclaimed.

  “On plants, anyway,” he agreed wryly. “We have many horrendous plants: nuclear, munitions, sewage—”

  “So if I see that lake, I'll know where we are, and then I can go the same route I used as a child to return directly to Castle Roogna. There's a candy garden, and a bug house and other awful stuff.”

  “A candy garden is awful?”

  “Because of the temptation. If you take even one lick of a lollypop, you're stuck in the dream realm forever, or worse. I think. I'm not quite sure, but I don't care to gamble. So we'll just have to stick to our own food until we get out of here.”

  “We finished our last bean sandwich,” he reminded her. “Actually, if it had gotten any more battered and old, it would have tasted like castor oil beans!”

  She grimaced. “Well, let's get a good night's sleep, then hope that we can move on in the morning before we get too hungry.”

  He smiled. “We may be hungry, but there's not much temptation if there's no food.”

  Ivy was getting increasingly annoyed by his superior attitude. “You want temptation? I'll show you temptation!”

  She led the way to the kitchen and flung open the door.

  There was a fine array of cakes and pastries laid out with glasses of delicious drink on the side. The heavenly smell was almost overwhelming.

  “There is food here!” Grey exclaimed, amazed. He stepped in, admiring it. “But strange, too. What's this?”

  “That's a patti cake,” she explained. “I won't eat them unless I'm sitting down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she explained patiently, “when you take a bite from such a cake, you get patted.”

  He paused, then resolutely continued his questioning.

  “What's so bad about that?”

  “These are fresh cakes, so they give pretty fresh pats. So you have to protect any part of your body you don't want patted. It's
worse with hot cross buns.”

  He pondered that, then smiled, then saw her frown and changed the subject. “What's this fizzing drink?”

  “Boot rear. You had really better sit down for that.”

  Grey looked pained, and she realized that he had just bitten his tongue so as to stifle a laugh. He was using Mundane magic: pain to stop mirth.

  “How about this one?” he asked, indicating a glass of brown fluid.

  “Mocolatechilk.”

  “From mocolate choo-cows, no doubt.”

  “Exactly.”

  He sighed. “You're right. This is too tempting. I want to gobble it down despite your ludicrous puns.”

  “If you think it's ludicrous,” she flared, “why don't you eat some, then?”

  “Maybe I will!” he retorted. He picked up the glass of chilk and brought it to his mouth.

  “No, don't!” she cried, flinging herself at him. She pushed the glass away before he could drink from it.

  “Uh, okay,” he said, disconcerted. “If you really feel that way.”

  “When are you going to get it through your Mundane head that this isn't Mundania?” she demanded. “Magic really does work here, and you can get into horrible trouble if you aren't careful!”

  “I'm sorry,” he said contritely, with his This-is-Not-the-Time-to-Disabuse-Her look. “Are there any other things to watch out for?”

  “No, this should be safe as long as the setting isn't in use. But maybe we'd better check.”

  “Of course.” He followed her out of the kitchen.

  She led him through the castle. Everything seemed to be in order. It was dark and gloomy with the onset of night, as was appropriate for a bad dream setting. She was about to take him to one of the guest rooms where he could sleep—she would use her own room, of course when she spied something odd.

  “This isn't right,” she said.

  “It looks like just another door,” Grey said. “What's wrong with it?”

  “There isn't any such door in the real Castle Roogna.”

  “Oh, so it's not a perfect replica. Maybe it's a secret entrance for the spooks when they come to set up a bad dream.”

  “Yes, that's probably it,” she agreed. “So we'd better stay away from it. There's no telling what's beyond it.”