xanth 40 - isis orb (34 page)

“Oh, yes,” Faro agreed.

They formed a single file line and followed the path through the wall and into the comic strip. There was chaos, but now it was safely off the path. The details were blurry, as they were through the comic strip wall. They had, in effect, walled off a path-shaped section.

“I’m almost disappointed,” Feline said.

“I see a pun!” Myst exclaimed happily, pointing to a foggy outline.

“What is it, dear?” Merge asked, squinting.

Hapless squinted too. The thing looked like a wooden box overflowing with dolls. Except that the dolls were moving. They were small people. Some of them clutched pencils, which they used to sketch pictures on any available surface.

“A chest of drawers,” the child said.

A subdued groan went through the party. “Let’s move on,” Zed said. Centaurs generally were not partial to puns.

They ignored other puns along the way, though Myst tittered several times as she observed them.

The path did not pass through the comic strip and emerge on the other side. Instead it turned to follow the strip lengthwise. Where was it going?

“Surely the goddess could not live in the strip,” Feline said, voicing Hapless’s thought. “The puns would drive her crazy.”

“Unless she is already crazy,” Merge said. “Some say the gods are mad.”

“Would that make her easier or harder to deal with?” Faro asked.

“Excellent question,” Zed said. “It may be a presumption to assume that she will be rational.”

“She looked rational in the picture,” Hapless said.

“She looked sexy,” Feline said. “That’s not the same.”

“You, of course, being in a position to know,” Zed said with a smile.

“Females know it; males don’t. That’s why they are so foolish about women.”

“And it is a woman we are up against.” Zed pondered briefly. “It occurs to me that we gave gathered power and practiced countering illusion. But what about dealing with a sexy woman? Some call Isis the goddess of sex.”

“Fertility,” Faro said. “That, too, is not the same.”

“But close enough. Maybe we should consult with Carmen, now that she’s on our side.”

“If you wish.”

They paused to gather around, the path coincidentally becoming wide enough at this point. Coincidentally? There was more to these paths than showed.

Feline touched her Totem and the gorgon appeared, garbed in an exceedingly tight halter and extremely short skirt. Skirt? But she wore her tail. The skirt actually made it look like legs, at least where it stretched across the hips. Hapless assumed she also wore the kerchief and dark glasses; his eyes were too firmly locked on her torso to make sure. “I thought you’d never ask.” She flounced the skirt, though there was hardly enough to flounce. The eyeballs of the males flexed in perfect harmony.

“So will the goddess try to freak out the males?” Feline asked.

“No. She’ll be more subtle. She’ll flash them just enough to make them docile, then deal with the females.”

“Deal with us for what?”

“She’ll want to know exactly why we’re here. She’ll know we’re on a Quest, because she’ll see the path, but she won’t know our specific object. Then she’ll decide whether she wants to cooperate.”

“And if she decides not to cooperate?”

“Then we’ll use the Totems, of which I am one, to force her to. Then we’ll be dealing with an angry goddess.”

“But if we win our case and get our wishes granted, will it matter?”

“Yes, because we will not be able to safely release her. It will be like letting a bomb detonate. Hell has no fury, etc.”

“Thank you,” Feline said. The gorgon made a final flirt of her skirt that came yea close to freaking out the males, then faded.

“Now we know,” Zed said as he cracked his eyeballs loose first left, then right. The other males were no better off.

“I believe her,” Quin said. “We’re in for mischief.”

“I’ll try to talk her into cooperating,” Hapless said. “Maybe she’ll listen to reason.”

The others burst out laughing. “She’s a
goddess
,” Feline said. “Why would she bother with reason?”

It seemed he had, as usual, said something foolish. Which made him wonder, for the Nth time, why he had been selected for this Quest. He was probably the least capable, physically and mentally, of them all.

Merge picked up on his mood. “There’s just something about you,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Myst agreed.

And what could that possibly be?

They resumed their trek. Now the path slanted upward. It did not emerge from the roof of the comic strip, if there was a roof; the height seemed not to matter. They rose above the rest of the strip like a coaster-roller ride, heading into the sky.

“Look!” Myst cried. “A castle!”

They looked, and it was true: in the sky ahead was a magnificent castle with turrets and pennants galore, a lovely sight. Its foundation was lost in dark mist, but its pinnacles were bathed in golden sunshine.

“There was no castle here when we entered the comic strip,” Zed said. “It has to be illusion.”

“It’s Isis’s castle,” Myst said. “I love it!”

Hapless remembered something. “Caution,” he murmured. “Remember our practice with illusion. Look, but do not indicate that anything is amiss.”

Then he and the others made mental snapshots of the castle. The result was amazing. It was a crude wooden structure with a tin roof, sitting on the ground. Nothing at all fancy.

But the illusion made it a glorious multi-tiered edifice floating in the sky.

“Your faces,” Merge said. “You are seeing something I am not.”

“We’d better pause here,” Hapless told the others. Then he brought Merge and Myst into a close huddle. “You did not get practice nullifying illusion. I think you need to learn it now. Simply concentrate on making a snapshot of what you are looking at, freezing it in place. That will make a still picture without the illusion. Only what’s physically there.”

They tried, and tried again. Then the child got it. “It’s wood!”

“Yes. Wood enhanced by illusion. That must be so that we won’t try to enter the castle and fall right through it; there needs to be something to touch.”

Merge tried again, and again. Then at last she got it. “Oh, my!”

“We will pretend we see only the castle,” Hapless said. “Since it is obviously fashioned for our benefit. But we will also know the reality. That may make a difference, if things get difficult.”

“Such as if we see a smoky dragon charging us,” Zed said. “And it’s really just a broomstick.”

“So we don’t jump out of the path and lose our protection,” Feline said.

Merge nodded. “Thank you for the warning. I would have jumped.”

“Yes,” Hapless said. “She will maintain the illusion as long as it seems to be fooling us, and we’ll maintain the semblance of being fooled as long as we can.”

“And you thought there wasn’t a reason for you to lead the Quest?” Feline asked. “You’re the one who figured out the snapshot technique.”

Hapless shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

“Maybe.”

They went on, openly admiring the castle. “The goddess must be really good with magic, to make such a castle,” Myst said brightly.

The castle loomed close, just as impressive as it was from a distance. The front entrance was (seemingly) solid stone, with a massive glass door in which they could see their reflections. As illusions went, it was impressive, because it meant it was interacting with them instead of being fixed in place.

Hapless stepped up and tapped on the door. The glass rang, making a kind of chime. Then the door slowly opened. They were being admitted.

An ornate hallway led to a grandiose chamber whose walls were sparkling glass through which sunlight filtered, forming prismatic bands of color. There was a fountain, and there the beams curled into rainbows. It was artistic and delightful. But the snapshot showed light leaking in through cracks in the walls and ceiling, and the fountain was a bucket of water.

In the center was a mighty throne of pure diamond. On it sat the Goddess Isis, wearing an ankle-length white linen dress expertly pleated with alternating horizontal and vertical patterns, as if patched together in sections, but each “patch” was of exquisitely artistic design. Her head and neck were covered by a finely wrought leopard skin mantle, and she wore a crown consisting of a pair of cow horns, between which was a bright circular plate as big as her head: the solar disk. But her feet were bare.

The snapshot showed her on her wooden throne, in halter and shorts, as in the box. The only thing that didn’t change was her beauty of face and figure. It seemed that she didn’t need illusion there.

“And who may you be?” the Goddess inquired. Her voice was mellow yet authoritative.

Hapless stepped forward. “I am Hapless, leader of this Quest. These are my Companions and companions.”

“And I am the Goddess Isis, mistress of my domain. What is your Quest?”

“We have wishes to be granted. We need the Orb to grant them.”

“And what are these wishes?”

Hapless reeled them off. “Feline wishes to be loved for something other than her curves. Zed wants to find true love. Nya wants to find her purpose. Quin wants to find out how to become human. Faro wants to get over her fear of heights. And I want to find a musical instrument I can play.”

“These are garden variety wishes. You hardly needed to undertake a Quest to achieve them.”

That was the uncomfortable truth they couldn’t admit without putting their whole Quest into doubt. “We understand the Orb can grant them.”

“The Orb is potentially the most powerful force in your realm. To invoke it for such minor favors is like conjuring a fire-breathing dragon to light your candle. You can’t be serious.”

Hapless was getting nettled despite her beauty. “We are serious. Lend us the Orb, grant our wishes, and we’ll depart.”

“And if I don’t?”

Hapless nerved himself to say it. “Then we shall have to take it from you.”

The Goddess pursed her lovely lips. “That you can’t do.”

“I think we can. But we’d rather settle with you peacefully than have to fight you.”

“It seems you do not appreciate the complexity of the challenge. Perhaps your Good Magician is making sport with you by sending you on an impossible mission.”

“I don’t believe that,” Hapless said stoutly, though he was beginning to wonder.

“Perhaps this will dampen your unbelief. Do any among you recognize untruth when you encounter it?”

“You mean when someone’s lying?” Myst asked. “I can tell.”

Merge nodded. “She can. She senses the atmosphere.”

“I smell the air,” Myst agreed.

Isis did not laugh. “Truth can come out of the months of babes. Very well, attend to me child, and tell your associates whether I am speaking the truth.” She paused, took a breath, and said: “The reason you can’t take the Orb is because at present it does not exist. I alone can make it exist, and I am not inclined to do that.”

Myst turned to the others. “She’s telling the truth.”

The others looked at her, surprised and dismayed.

Myst fidgeted. “But it’s not the whole truth.”

“Clever girl,” the Goddess said. “Tell me, child, can you tell the truth about things as well as people?”

“Sure. Like this fancy castle is just a wooden shack with a tin roof, and you’re in shorts instead of a royal gown.”

An expression crossed Isis’s face that was somewhere between surprise, admiration, and pure fury. But the Goddess quickly erased it. “So it seems we have no secrets here. All of you knew?”

“We knew,” Hapless said.

“And what else don’t I know about you that relates?”

She would know soon enough anyway. “We have the five Totems.”

Isis glanced at Myst. “True,” the child said. “They went into the Regions and got them, ’cause they knew they’d need them to make the Orb work.”

Isis contemplated Hapless with a new appreciation. Her gaze was disquieting. “It seems you came prepared.”

“Uh, yes.”

“But can you actually use them?”

Hapless looked at the others. “Maybe a very brief demonstration?”

Feline smiled, but not in a very nice way. “Merge, Myst, go join Hapless. This will be rough around the edges.”

Mother and daughter came to hold Hapless’s hands.

“Maybe three seconds, on my mark?” Feline asked. The others nodded. “Three, two, one, mark.”

At that point Feline spurted a blast of water toward the Goddess, Nya sent a jet of fire, Quin emitted an explosive blast of air, Zed made the ground shake with a small earthquake, and Faro’s Horn sucked in the Goddess’s wooden throne as she hastily leaped clear. It was all over in three seconds.

The chamber was in a shambles, in illusion and reality. Isis herself was both wet and scorched; her halter was askew, and her hair was a mess.

“You did ask,” Hapless said, his eyes starting to crystallize.

“I did,” the Goddess agreed, as she righted her halter, surely to Feline’s relief. Hapless’s eyes resumed motion. She was clearly impressed but not affrighted.

“So what’s the whole truth?” Hapless asked.

“To understand that, you would have to know more about me.”

Hapless glanced at Myst, who nodded. More truth.

“Then tell us more about you,” Hapless said.

“You might find it dull.”

Hapless looked at the others. Then he spoke again. “Tell us anyway.”

“As you wish. Make yourselves comfortable in a convenient crater.”

They found places to settle down, Myst went to sleep on Merge’s lap, and Isis began to speak. Maybe she used an illusion assist, because Hapless found himself almost in the scene, sharing her perspective.

“I was born (confusion, in a moment sorting itself into a scene of the internal Stork Works) about eight thousand years ago, along with my brother Osiris. We loved each other from the start.” Indeed, the baby girl was kissing the baby boy. In fact it soon went farther than that; they seemed not to be bound by the Adult Conspiracy. Of course this was a long time ago, and not in Xanth.

“We grew up together, and in due course I married my brother, and was true to him. We were satisfied. But we had not reckoned with the jealousy of other siblings. Our sister Nephthys loved Osiris too, and one night made herself look like me so he thought he was with me, and they made love. I was furious when I learned of it, but what could I do without alerting my husband to the deception? So I was silent, but saw to it that my sister never had access to him again.”