Geis of the Gargoyle (21 page)

"Which makes it an even worse deal," Gary said.
 
"It is also true that you do not know how to save her tree," the sane demoness continued.
 
"So you can not agree to do that.
 
However, you can reasonably promise to try to find a way, just as she can reasonably give you information that may help your quest.
 
This seems like a fair deal."

"Why so it does," Iris said.
 
"You each try to help the other, without being certain of success."

Gary looked at the dryad.
 
"Does that make sense to

"I'm not a man at all.
 
I'm a gargoyle in manfonn."

"Oh, then it's all right.
 
Gargoyles are very constant."

"But if Gary saves her tree, she won't marry me," Hiatus protested.

"Gary will try," Mentia said reasonably.
 
"You will try.
 
Whoever first succeeds will have his reward.
 
And Desiree has two chances to survive."

"But-"

"If you fail and Gary succeeds, would you prefer to see her tree die rather than be saved his way?"

Hiatus looked stricken.
 
"No, of course not.
 
I want her and her tree to prosper, even if I don't"

The dryad glanced at him, surprised.
 
The first faint flicker of maidenly interest crossed her face.

"Then I will undertake to try to find a way to save your tree," Gary said.

"The path is over there," she said, pointing.

"But that's just a tangle of nettles."

"I trust her," Hiatus said.
 
He marched into the nettles- and through them without getting snagged.
 
Meanwhile the second flicker of interest touched the dryad, as the illusion surrounding her faded and she and her tree turned gaunt again.

The others followed him, and lo, there was a paA there.
 
Gary was the last to go.
 
"I'll try," he repeated.
 
"I have no idea what will help, but I'll try to find it and bring it back to you."

"Thank you," she called, and her tree almost seemed to wave a branch, though that was probably just from a breeze.

After a suitably maddening trek they stumbled across the giant.
 
That was because he was invisible, as most giants of Xanth were.
 
He was lying on the ground, his huge outline roughly marked by the foliage that was starting to grow around him.

"Ahoy there, giant!" Mentia called.
 
"Where is your head?"

"Over here," the giant responded.

The brush was so thick that they could not get through it, so they scrambled up onto the giant's leg and walked toward his distant head.
 
Now they seemed to be floating, though they were as solid as ever, because they were half the height of the surrounding trees with only air showing beneath them.
 
Actually it wasn't air, but giant flesh.
 
It would have been scary if the leg weren't so solid to touch.
 
The giant was enormously huge.

They reached the chest, which was rising and falling with the quakelike fluxes of his breath, and concluded that this was close enough.
 
"Are you injured?" his asked.

"No, merely confused," the big head-shaped space replied with a gust of warm wind that smelled as if it had crossed a burning landfill on a bad day.
 
"I can't find my way out of this madness, so I'm resting.
 
I'm Jethro Giant."

"We're a party consisting of a demoness, a gargoyle, a child, a Sorceress, and an ordinary man," Iris said.
 
"We're looking for the ruins."

"I lumbered through there," Jethro said.
 
"Just follow my footprints back."

"Did you see a veil?" Mentia asked.

"It's not a vale, it's more like a plain.
 
Will that do?"

"Not vale as in vole," she said precisely.
 
"Veil as in maiden."

"Oh.
 
No.
 
No maidens there.
 
It's too harsh for them."

"Aren't you going to try to make a deal?" Surprise asked.

"Deal?"

"For your information," Iris clarified, grimacing toward the little girl.

"Should I?" Jethro asked.

"The dryad did," Gary said.
 
"We thought you would want us to find you a way out of here, or something like that."

"No, I will surely blunder my way out in due course, just as I blundered my way in," the giant said.
 
"Once I have rested and have my brute strength back.
 
I will wait until you are well clear, so I don't step on you."

"Thank you for that consideration," Mentia said.
 
"But will you answer a question?"

"I will make the effort," Jethro said.
 
"But my mind is not nearly as big or strong as my body or my breath, so I may be unable."

"Why are you so large?"

"Why all giants are large.
 
That's part of the definition."

"I know that.
 
But my better aspect Metria has been around for centuries, and on occasion she has encountered invisible giants.
 
She spoke with one fifty years ago, and he was only a tenth your height.
 
Are you a giant among giants?"

"Why no," Jethro said, sounding perplexed.
 
"I am the same size as any other invisible giant, as far as I know.
 
We can't see each other, of course, but we leave similar-sized footprints.
 
I was a lad of about forty fifty years ago, and I was the same size as my friends then."

"You're ninety years old?" Iris asked, surprised.
 
"When were you delivered?"

"In the year one thousand and one."

"That's when I was delivered! We're the same age."

The tremendous face must have been squinting.
 
"No offense.
 
Sorceress, but you don't look ninety-three.
 
I would have guessed more like twenty-three.
 
Or are you using illusion?"

"No, I have been rejuvenated.
 
But now that Mentia mentions it, I too have had some concourse with giants, and I remember that when I was in my maidenly forties, they stood about ten times the height of a normal man.
 
But you must be a hundred times a man's height.
 
How do you explain this?"

"I must have continued to grow," Jethro said.
 
"Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember that trees and houses have gotten smaller than they used to be.
 
But normally giants don't increase much in size after they reach their maturity.
 
This does seem odd."

"Extremely odd," Mentia agreed.
 
"One of several odd things."

"There are others?" Gary asked.

"Some.
 
For example, the centaurs used to be slower living than straight human folk, so they would take about four times as long to fade out from old age.
 
But now they seem to age at the same rate.
 
And sphinxes faded out centuries ago, but now they are back as if they had never been gone.
 
These are curious matters to explain."

"You are right," Iris said.
 
"I have lived long enough to remember.
 
Things have changed."
 
"And the madness has expanded," Hiatus said.
 
"Could that be related?"

"That's right," Mentia said.
 
"The madness seems to have been expanding for some time, but not prior to this century.
 
All these changes seem to have occurred recently.
 
I wonder why?"

"If we could figure out why," Hiatus said, growing excited, "we might know how to reverse the madness."

"It would help to pinpoint the time of change," his said.
 
"I think things were stable while I remained on the Isle of Illusion.
 
But after I married Trent and moved to Castle Roogna, it was different.
 
I never really thought about it until now."

"That is my impression," Mentia agreed.
 
"My better half wasn't much concerned about giants because they were invisible, but each time she encountered one, it was bigger."

"Was there anything special that happened?" Gary asked.
 
"I mean, something that might have affected the whole of Xanth, like the Time of No Magic, or-"

"The Time of No Magic!" Iris and Mentia exclaimed together.

"That must have been it," Jethro said.
 
"That disrupted myriads of the old spells, and started the break up of the forget spell on the Gap Chasm so that now we can remember it.
 
Who knows what else it did?"

"Who knows, indeed," Iris breathed.
 
"All the men stoned by the Gorgon returned to life and returned to their wives-" Her jaw dropped.
 
"And thereafter her talent matured some more, and she started stoning females as well as males.
 
We thought it was simply a matter of competence with age, but now I don't think so."

"But could the Time of No Magic cause the madness to expand?" Gary asked.
 
"That seems farfetched."

"Not if there were some ancient spell holding the madness in check," Mentia said.
 
"That the Time of No Magic wiped out, so that the mischief could spread.
 
Since the madness is an effect of concentrated magic dust, that wider spread of dust could have had sundry effects, such as making the giants grow, or the centaurs to align with humans, or some talents like that of the Gorgon to intensify.
 
It could have had scores of slews of smaller effects folk never really noticed.
 
Because the changes happened gradually.
 
The Time of No Magic was in the year one tenforty-three, fifty-one years ago, and those changes are still occurring.
 
Who would notice a single year's change? But it seems it has been happening-and it may indeed represent the key to our dilemma."

"It may?" Gary asked.
 
The demoness was now making so much sense that she was leaving him behind.

"You started getting overwhelmed by Mundane pollution in the water in that same period, Gary," Mentia said.
 
"You need the philter so you can keep up.
 
Your quest may be because of another consequence of the Time of No Magic."

It did make sense.
 
"But the philter is only for water.
 
How can we restore an unknown spell that confined the madness?"

"That is what we shall have to find out," Mentia said.
 
"We shall have to hope that there is more in those ruins than your philter."

"They looked pretty bare to me," Jethro said.
 
"But of course I wasn't looking carefully."

"We shall have to look carefully," Iris said.
 
She faced the empty giant face.
 
"Thank you for your valuable assistance in this matter, Jethro.
 
You may have been far more help to us and to the Land of Xanth than any of us anticipated."

"Gee," the giant said, pleased.