hot cross buns: Similar to patti cakes, these inflict warm stripes across the same part of the body that patti cakes pat.

 

icicle: This sickle is made of the purest white non-melting ice. It has a cutting edge on its inside curve which can be sharpened by honing it over a torch.

 

Love Spring

 

infinite decimal. A tiny dot which precisely and impersonally judges the fairness of matters to the smallest degree.

 

jigsaw puzzle: No two pieces fit together unless requested by the correctly worded plea, which is different for each match. The portions of the picture that show, unlike Mundane puzzles, keep changing.

 

ladder, enchanted: A useful device that anchors permanently to any wall until someone calls out "weigh anchor!" which causes it to kick loose violently.

 

lemon harangue pie: A sour little pastry that throws insults around.

 

lepermud: This dead white liquid clay infects any flesh it touches with leprosy.

 

lexicon: All the properly forgotten things of Xanth, compiled into a list by three curious Mundanes.

 

life clay: It can be molded into the semblance of any living creature. It will then behave as such, except that it will not die when cut into pieces; it will merely reform as several small models of the original creature.

 

lightning bolts: Bolts which fall from the sky during storms. They do a lot of damage if they strike too close to anything. When they cool, they are good for bolting things together.

 

lines and boxes: A popular game of strategy in Xanth.

 

living room: A room which wanders about on its own legs, seeking to find itself a home.

 

Lost Path: The path along which all lost things lie, from artifacts to people.

 

love spring: This natural pool causes any two species who drink of it to wish to mate (including plant life). This is chiefly how new conglomerate species are engendered.

 

lunatic fringe: A protective illusion of madness woven out of the light of the full moon to scare off intruders.

 

magic mirrors: Very rare. Humfrey uses them for a variety of purposes: divination of questions that can be answered yes or no, long-distance communication, and magical observation of distant scenes. Others are used by the Royal Family to keep in touch with one another.

 

magic stones: Have varied types of magic proper to stones, such as to divert streams up over them or to cause damage to humans.

 

magic wand: A stick that holds a powerful spell that anyone can use. Goldy Goblin has one that can levitate objects or people.

 

Magnifying Glass

 

magnifying glass: A Mundane device that in Xanth makes things bigger.

 

memory crystal: A huge cut crystal resting in a sunny grove where it can pick up the best sunlight. Each of the crystal's many facets reveals a different memory to anyone who looks into it.

 

midnight sunstone: The rarest of all gems, it glows as brightly as the sun when there is no other light.

 

milkshakes: Milkweed pods which, when opened, quake and shiver, spilling half their contents.

 

mocolate chilk: Tasty brown fluid that comes from mocolate choo-cows. monster cheese: A delicious cheese that makes a human act like a monster. On real monsters, it has no side effects. The more ladylike version is monsterella. Variants exist in Mundania: muenster and mozzarella. (Sorry, we're not responsible

for crazy Mundane spelling!) See also Gorgon-zola.

 

moonstones: Little pocked globes that shine silvery green with the light of the moon. Their outline reflects the quarter of the moon showing in the sky.

 

mouth organ: Big plant made up of mouths of all sizes and shapes, plays music. Little ones can be picked and played by hand. They are part animal, vegetable and mineral. The organ pipe cactus is a related species.

 

mussels: Clamlike things that pull shells closed.

 

oil slicks: These puddles lie on the surface of the ground, the products of tanker trees that have inadequately disposed of their wastes. The oil is slipperier than almost any other substance in Xanth, and can propel a walker headlong into obstacles. They have sentience to a limited degree, and a mean sense of humor.

 

opposite sex: By order of the Adult Conspiracy, this definition has been censored. What would happen if children found out which one it was?

 

panties: Object of much speculation in Xanth: exactly what color are they? Boys beneath the Age of Consent are not permitted to speculate. It is part of the Adult Conspiracy.

 

Paste Orifice: A delivery service that gums things up.

 

patti cake: You should eat this sitting down, or it will pat you. Fresh patti cakes give pretty fresh pats, so you should protect any part you don't want patted.

 

pennies: Round bits of metal that fall from the sky. Single penny bits have one delicious perfume scent. Twopenny bits have two scents, sixpenny bits have six scents, and so on. Not to be confused with the Heaven Cent.

 

pied-piper flute: Once begun, this flute will play itself and attract any creature into following it.

 

purple bouillon; A delicacy in Xanth, wrung from purple wood by ogres.

 

quicksand: It speeds you up.

 

rainbow: A banded arc of color in the sky containing in order every color in the spectrum. Between the bands of visible color are the translucent colors, and some hues lie in patterns, such as polkadot, plaid and checkerboard. Some of the colors have never been imagined by man, such as fortissimo, charm, phon and torque. The rainbow is fussy about where and under what conditions it appears in the sky, and it works on a very tight schedule, so it never remains anywhere very long. It keeps a set distance from those viewing it, so that it is fixed as long as one keeps looking at it. The rainbow is one of the most fabulous sights in Xanth or Mundania, for this is one of the only types of magic which appears in both lands.

 

red tape: Festoons of red ribbon that prevent movement by tying things up and presenting physical impediment.

 

Revised Simplified Tax Manual: A source of limitless inspiration for gibberish, used by Mae Maenad for oracles and by Mundanes for annual aggravation in the month of Apull.

 

rolling hills: Topographical features that can be a hazard to travelers because they really roll.

 

sad sacks: Gloomy-colored but strong fiber bags that grow on low bushes.

 

sand dune: A heap of sand that moves onto beaches and takes them over; it rolls over prey and smothers them to eat at leisure. It believes that it is preserving fossils for posterity. It doesn't attack at night.

 

seaweed soup: Wholesome and nutritious, therefore a torment to children. Mela feeds it to Prince Dolph. See Adult

 

Conspiracy.shadow of a doubt: A deep, dark gloom which dissipates when ignored.

 

sharpening stone: Casts keen edges on any knife or axe brought into contact with it.

 

shoefly pie: Filled with shoes, boots, slurpy leathery juices, delicious laces and soles, this huge pastry is a treat fit for an ogre.

 

shower cap: From this useful hat, water rushes down your person to the ground and back up again, magically washing you clean without spilling the water.

 

sign language: Understood by animals in Xanth, if people have the wit to approach them with it, and by a select group of Mundanes.

Rainbow

Stares

 

skeleton key: Needed to find the Heaven Cent. At first thought to be an isle, it turns out to be a rib Grace'l possesses, which sounds the Grace'l note in the key of G. Female skeletons have one more rib than male skeletons, because the missing rib wasused by the Demon X(A/N)th to form the first female skeleton for the first male skeleton, who was lonely.

 

skinflint: Small brass scales from the City of Brassies used for covering and protecting wounds (or dents) until they heal. Can be used on human flesh as well.

 

slowsand: Prevents one from getting through the region by slowing their progress to a crawl. One can die of starvation wading through slowsand. Even a jump over it can take forever.

 

soda water springs: Natural effervescent springs that come in several flavors, such as lime, strawberry, cream soda, celery, or orange.

 

soapstones: These scented or unscented balls of rock lather up nicely when rubbed in the hands with water.

 

somersault: A seasonal wandering white globe made of salt that explodes into powder if struck.

 

spec-tackles: Ghostly creatures with glassy eyes and big shoulders.

 

sponge: Natural cushions that soothe pain and spread healing comfort.

 

stares: A means of attaining the next level in the Bookworm's cavern. By meeting the gaze of each successively higher statue, one is lifted magically through the air.

 

stepping stone: Stone which expands in water to provide a broad but not steady step. The top protrudes just above the water.

 

sugar sand: Found in patches throughout Xanth, it is one of the nicest additions to a meal. Unlike the Mundane equivalent, sugar sand does not cause cavities. Naturally sweet things grow in it.

 

tail-lights: Fluffy little animals that hop which have glowing cottony tails.

 

Uroborus

 

tangles: They start out as tiny snarls in children's hair or horses' tails, but grow into huge tangle trees.

 

technicolor hailstorm: Puffy and light stones that fall out of the sky that sting when they strike.

 

There Restorer: Potion used to re-embody ghosts.

 

tire iron: This mace-shaped weapon tires anyone it strikes so much they go to sleep.

 

twister: Deadly storm, much like those in Mundania, but these twist houses and trees into corkscrews. Tangle trees are braided, and wheatfields are cornrowed, by these fearful spiraling winds.

 

Two Minute Replay: A gift to Onda and Max from the Time Being which enables them to replay two minutes of time.

 

typewriter: Mundane philosophical device used for generating wisdom.

 

Uroborus: A legend in Xanth about a giant serpent who was so large it encircled the Mundane world and grasped its own tail.

 

vomit fungus: Found only in the Region of Madness or anywhere a monster wants to liven up his abode with appropriate decoration. It hangs in disgustingly greasy streamers, and looks distressingly real.

 

washing powder: A useful spell to get clothes clean, but it has to be kept in a sealed container because it is always running out. When it is poured into water, it makes the water wash up and down against the edges of its container.

 

watch: Magic amulet of Mundanian design which can find things. It is called a watch because it watches things with its single eye.

 

wood wind: A living plant that can be played as a musical instrument. It is long and hollow, with holes along its stem. It blows out much more wind than it takes in.

 

Worm: A computer program nominally put out by Vaporware Limited. It promises a lot, if you wait long enough. It installed Com- Pewter's Sending in Grey Murphy's computer. It was sent to Mundania by Com-Pewter as part of a nefarious plot. However, it has ideas of its own on what it plans to do in the future, which has nothing to do with Com- Pewter's instructions. If the computer containing the Worm is running, Xanthians in the vicinity can understand Mundane speech.

 

worry wart: A wart you may get on your head. When you scratch it, you become worried. Sometimes they are impossible to ignore.

 

 

The months of the year in Xanth

(AwGhost, etc.) and their holidays and

celebrations

(New ones initiated by Piers Anthony

9 October 1988)

Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth 215

Jamboree

4 Day of the Allegory

8 Hiatus' and Lacuna's Birthday

12 DeMetria Offers Esk Ogre Three Great Experiences

16 Castle Roogna Dedicated

21 Volney Vole Sets Out to Save Kiss-Mee River

25 Faux Pass Created

28 Chameleon's Birthday

FeBlueberry

3 Dame Latia Curdles Water

6 Arnolde Centaur Learns His Talent

10 Night Stallion Takes Over the Night Mare Herd

15 Day of the Zombie

17 Sorceress Tapis's Birthday

19 Grundy Golem Is Constructed

25 Gerrymander Divides and Conquers

30 Simurgh's Birthday (Doesn't come often, so she lives long!)

Marsh

3 Day of the Dragon

5 Chex Centaur Weds Cheiron

6 Marrow Bones Defends Draco Dragon's Treasure

8 Rapunzel Escapes the Ivory Tower

11 Dolph's Birthday

16 Demon X(A/N)th Learns How to Play to Win

21 Humfrey Marries the Gorgon

25 Grace'l Ossein's Trial

29 Magic Dust Village Founded

Apull

2 Nextwave Invades Xanth

7 Prince Dolph's Test of the Roses

11 Blythe Brassie Emerges from Gourd

15 Irene's Birthday

22 The Siren Marries Morris Merman

24 Day of the Secretary Bird

27 Justin Tree Transformed

216 Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth

Mayhem

1 Nada Naga's Birthday

7 Day of the Nymph

15 Smash Ogre Crams Demon Into Gourd

20 Voles Depart Xanth

25 Tandy's Birthday

30 Centaur 500 Race

JeJune

4 Brain Coral Kisses Irene

10 Day of the Elf

15 Ichabod Comes To Xanth

20 Demon Beauregard Completes

His Thesis: "Fallibilities of Other Intelligent Life"

23 Irene Marries Dor

27 Sorceress Tapis Completes the Tapestry

Jewel-Lye

3 Day of the Goblin

5 Nymph's Mother Frightened By A Pun

8 Mare Imbrium Goes Day Mare

12 Herman Hermit Dies

17 King Trent's Coronation

28 Jewel's Birthday

AwGhost

1 Day of the Ghost

6 Bink's Birthday

10 Gap Dragon Rejuvenated As Stanley Steamer

13 Ivy Conquers Thyme

15 Smash Ogre's Birthday

19 Zora Zombie Finds Love

23 Wiggle Swarm

27 Electra Completes the Heaven Cent

SapTimber

4 Day of the Tangle Tree

10 Time of No Magic

12 Grundy Golem Turns Real

15 Dor's Birthday

18 Monster of the Sea Tries to Rescue Andromeda

22 Jordan the Ghost Reanimated

23 Threnody Reanimated

OctOgre

2 Ogres Leave Lake Ogre-Chobee

12 Ivy's Birthday

16 Day of the Ogre

19 Black Punday—Bottom Falls Out of the Pun Market

26 Crunch Ogre Meets Actress

30 Ogres Arrive at Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen

NoRemember

4 Fracto Crowns Himself King of the Clouds

8 Jordan Meets Bluebell Elf

11 Girard Giant Meets His Figment

14 Ivy Plights Troth to Grey Murphy at Hate Spring

18 Pook Meets Peek

21 Adult Conspiracy Established to Hide Secrets From Children

30 Gap Chasm Forget Spell Detonated

Dismember

1 Zombie Master Zombies Himself

6 Pedestal Dedicated To A Dragon

11 Lastwave Invades Xanth

18 Monster Under the Bed Grabs His 10,000th Ankle

21 Com-Pewter Created by the Muse Clio

27 Castle Roogna Deserted

29 Day of the Night Mare

AFTERWORD

erhaps the most controversial aspect of Xanth is the pun factor, as mentioned in the introduction to this book and in the intro to the Beastiary (sic), and wherever else they can wedge their way in. Critics pounce on them, seeming to think that though a wart on Miss Universe might not make her wholly unattractive, a pun in fiction destroys all vestige of readability. Readers seem divided, with some even sending in puns, which largess I am trying to discourage. The fact is, Xanth is composed largely of puns, from its outline and geography to its incidentals, so those who would abolish all punish elements would in fact abolish Xanth—which may be the point.

I harbor a suspicion that it isn't really the puns that critics object to. After all, others have been known to pun without being excoriated. It may be the fact that Xanth has become highly successful. The last seven Xanth novels - #5 through #11 at this writing—have made the New York Times bestseller list. I dare say that not many series have that kind of record; offhand I can think of only Start Wreck within the SF/fantasy genre, and that series too is

not well accepted critically. So it may be that the critics resent the success of it, and use the puns only as a pretext.

 

I also suspect that when a critic condemns the stupid puns—and there are plenty in Xanth!—it is because he is too dull to catch the sophisticated puns. Oh yes, they are here, some of them requiring special expertise to fathom. For example, Heavenly Helen Harpy, the one pretty harpy in an ugly flock. Why did I name her Helen? Well, for the alliteration, of course; that's always fun. But also for literature. British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Victorian Age read about how Helen of Troy dedicated to Venus, the goddess of love, a goblet molded in the shape of her breast. Rossetti, evidently intrigued (as what man wouldn't be?), wrote a poem about it, Troy Town. It starts off "Heavenborn Helen, Sparta's queen,/ (O Troy Town!)/ Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,/ The sun and the moon of the heart's desire:/ All Love's lordship lay between./ (O Troy's down!/ Tall Troy's on fire.)" Well, I too am fascinated by the intrigues of history, and have played several times on the ramifications of the Siege of Troy. I am also fascinated by poetry and literature, and the thinking and the art of those who have lived before me. I am also fascinated by life and death and the figures of young women. How I wish I had that goblet on my shelf! So it was natural that I allude to this matter in some way, and I did it punnishly in Xanth, and more seriously elsewhere. Thus instead of Heavenborn Helen, Sparta's queen, and her marvelous breasts, I have Heavenly Helen, Harpy's queen, with her marvelous breasts. This is indeed a pun, and one I suspect few

who are not versed in the literature of England have caught on to independently, but it is also an expression of my sincere appreciation for history, literature and beauty. There is more on my mind than puns, but a pun can be the key to the rest of it.

 

Another cross-jurisdictional pun is a centaur's reference to passing his croggle test. This one cuts across horsemanship and fandom. Those who have show horses must give them the Coggins test, to be sure they will not contaminate other horses; Sky Blue, the model for Mare Imbri, had such a test. Those who are in fandom have a special language to address fannish things, and one of their terms is croggle: to be croggled is to be amazed. So the croggle test—ah, I see you get it now.

 

The night mares are structured on layered puns, starting with the Mundane term for a bad dream which becomes literally a type of horse, and moving on to the mares or seas of the moon, which can be seen only at night. The pronunciation differs, but a little thing like that never stopped a galloping pun. Hence the prints of the hooves of the night mares show the partial circles of the phases of the moon, with each mare's mare highlighted.

 

Then there is the matter of the calendar. A rumor was going around fandom that I was being an ogre at conventions. Since at that time I had never even attended a fan convention, this struck me as unkind, and it accounts in part for the distance I keep between myself and fandom; I prefer to associate with those who have some fairness about ascertaining the truth rather than spreading a false story. But I dealt with it in my own punish fashion: I wrote a novel featuring an ogre as the hero. That novel, Ogre, Ogre, was published in the month of October, and became my first New York Times bestseller. I started calling myself the Ogre, especially as I bashed down other fans who sought to spread misinformation about me. I think it is now generally known in fandom that it is not safe to misrepresent Piers Anthony in

print. That pretty well set back that rumor! But I couldn't help perceiving the justice of it: obviously that was the month of the Ogre, OctOgre. But what about the other months? My brain began heating, ogre-style, as I pondered, and in due course I came up with an entire calendar of ogre months, and it was published for 1987 by Del Rey Books. It seems that the ogres keep the calendar of Xanth because they are the only creatures too stupid to mind getting their hamfingers sticky on the dates. Now the calendar may become a regular thing, starting with the Xanth PinUp Calendar of 1990, with its twelve luscious females and one unluscious female: Miss Mayhem, an ogress so ugly that the mirror she is looking at is shattering, and she wears a dead skunk tucked in her belt as a deodorizer. So the puns truly abound in the calendar, but it can still be used for Mundane purpose, if you are too stupid to mind the sticky dates. We ogres must stick together.

 

There is a pun of another kind in XI2, Man from Mundania: the weird address where the Good Magician is hiding, with its Silly goose Lane and all. The tribulations of wending one's way to this address are detailed in the novel; Hurts is where the painful things of the gourd are generated, for example, and that region bears a passing similarity to the Mundane Hell. But this address is actually that of a lady named Pamela with whom I have been corresponding for several years, and sometimes phoning, and I even give her ten to fifteen percent of the money my books earn overseas. No, I am not the only man in her life; she has a number of other clients, for she is a professional. What, you may be wondering, does my wife think of this? Well, my wife is tolerant, for Pamela is the mistress of my foreign sales. That is, my overseas literary agent. If you want an agent and are willing to search through

Hurts itself...

 

I have been called a pun master, and folks inquire how I do it. The answer is, I don't know. I was never known as a punster, and it hardly manifests outside Xanth, and indeed, critics do not find me funny at all, except when I speak of writing well; that they find hilarious. But I do have an analogue type of mind, seeing analogies in everything, and this in its basest form seems to result in puns: analogies between horses and seas of the moon, or between the breasts of a harpy and those of Sparta's queen, or between horses and fandom. In its more elevated form, this way of seeing things helps me to be a better writer, as I contemplate the human condition and the meaning of the universe, and seek to make sense of some part of it for myself and for my readers. This is true even in Xanth, and I hope that my readers derive some of their pleasure from that wider perspective, even if the only hints of it are in a mare's hoofprint or a heavenly harpy.

 

The Chronicles of Xanth

X1A Spell for Chameleon

X2The Source of Magic

X3Castle Roogna

X4Centaur Aisle

X5Ogre, Ogre

X6Night Mare

X7Dragon on a Pedestal

X8Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn

X9Golem in Gears

X10 Vale of the Vole

X11 Heaven Cent

X12 Man from Mundania

X13 Isle of View*

X14 Question Quest*

X15 The Color of Her Panties*

X16 Demons Don't Dream*

XI7 Harpy Thyme*

X18 Geis of the Gargoyle*

N1 The Encyclopedia of Xanth

* forthcoming

N2 Ghost of a Chance

CREWEL LYE (A Caustic Yarn)

CHAPTER ONE Retyping of deleted chapter from carbon of original, said carbon donated to Clarion West for scholarship fund.

TANGLEMAN

t was the month of Octogre, when the ogres were tromping about and

ugly forebodings stalked the land of Xanth. Or so it seemed to Ivy, for a

number of annoyances had settled about her like knick-gnats. For one

thing, her mother Irene was getting quite fat in the tummy, but kept

right on eating and pretending it was wonderful, and didn't seem to have

much time for Ivy anymore. For another, her father King Dor had

ordered a baby brother for her, and they were expecting to find him

under a cabbage leaf any day now. Ivy did not need or want a baby

brother, but nobody had asked her. How could they have been so thoughtless as

to order something like that without consulting the one most concerned? What

good was a baby, anyway—especially a boy?

Well, she could go out to the orchard and throw cherries at glass trees. That

was always fun for bad moods, and the explosions created a nice commotion, not

to mention the breaking glass tinkling down. Of course the adults tended to raise

a fuss, but that was part of the excitement. Yes, that would do for a start!

She jumped off her bed, landing just beyond the reaching grasp of the monsterunder-

the-bed, and ran for the door. "Pooh to you, monster!" she cried nastily,

sticking out her tongue at it as she slipped out. The thing growled, but could not

reach her, and had to retreat back into its shadow.

Grundy the Golem intercepted her as she passed into the hall. "Where are you

going, Princess Tadpole?" He always called her that, ever since hearing the fable

about the princess and the frog; he liked the story, but refused to grant her the

status of a full-grown frog.

There was another annoyance! They had sicked Grundy on her as a baby-sitter;

she couldn't sneak out anywhere without him tagging along. "Nowhere, ragbrain,"

she said shortly.

"Then we might as well get on to the North Village, Sweetpea." He always called

her that, ever since—never mind.

"The North Village! I'm not going there!"

"Yes you are, Snippet. To visit your grandpa King Emeritus Trent for a few

days."

"Grandpa Trent? Why?" Actually, this sounded interesting; still, she felt

obligated to protest, on general principle.

"To get you out of the way, Cutie-pie, while your baby brother arrives, of

course." He always called her that, ever since she had climbed into a pie and

pulled the crust over her for a blanket. The castle cook had made a fuss, for no

reason.

Ivy wasn't thrilled to be reminded of that. "I'd rather stay at home and build a

deadfall to trap him. Do you happen to know which cabbage leaf—?"

Grundy considered, seeming to find something funny. "You could ask the

zombies to do it. They keep an eye on the garden, and they're good at deadfalls.

They use them for their deadstock."

"Good enough!" She ran down the hall, heading for the zombie graveyard.

The golem zipped after her. He could move surprisingly quickly for such a little

creature. "But we haven't time for that right now! King Trent is waiting."

"Oh, pooh!" she said, skewing around a corner in the manner only she could

manage, spooking a ghost who happened to be drifting through. "He's not here

yet!"

"Really?"

Ivy skidded to a halt. There stood her grandfather, at the head of the stairs,

awesomely stern and grave.

"Oopsy!" she exclaimed.

King Emeritis Trent smiled. Like most adults, he was subject to mellowing by

cute displays. "Are you ready to travel, Ivy? What form of bird would you like to

be?"

Ivy brightened. She liked flying! "A blue-J," she decided. "And Grundy can be a

green-J."

"Coming up," King Trent said. He never gave her cutesy nicknames; he treated

her with the dignity due royalty. Ivy had a high regard for grandparents;

sometimes she wished she could eliminate the middleman and just be her

grandparents' daughter.

"Wait, Grandpa!" she cried, remembering something. "What about Stanley?"

"We'll fly down and fetch him," her grandfather agreed indulgently, aware that

children always wanted to take their pets with them. Then Ivy became a blue-J,

and Grundy a green-J, and King Trent himself a red-J.

At which the green-J did a doubletake. "You can't transform yourself, Your

Majesty!" he squawked at the red-J.

"I can when I'm only present in illusion," the red-J replied.

"Live and learn," the golem-bird muttered. "He's here in illusion—and can still

do transformations. Isn't magic marvelous!"

It occurred to Ivy that it would be great talent to be able to transform oneself to

any other form. Grandpa Trent could only transform others; it was Grandma Iris

who handled the illusions. So she was projecting Grandpa Trent as a red-J

instead of himself; he wasn't really here. Ivy envied those who had such obvious

talents; her own talent of enchantment was subtle, and tended to do others more

good than herself, so people didn't always recognize her as the Sorceress she was.

That could be most annoying at times.

They flew out a window and looped down to the moat, where Stanley Steamer

was snoozing on the bank and a young moat-monster snoozed in the water. The

young dragon was somewhat smitten with the female monster, and at times got

fairly steamed up about her, but Ivy knew her for a tease. Males of all kinds

tended to be foolish about females of all kinds; this was a fact Ivy noted carefully

for future reference. One never knew when such information might come in

handy.

"Come on, Stanley—we're flying north!" Ivy called.

The dragon peered up at the J's, perplexed. He flapped his vestigial wings, as if

to show that the spirit was willing but the flesh inadequate. He recognized Ivy by

her voice and smell; sometimes Grandpa Trent had transformed her to other

forms, so Stanley was used to that. But as for flying—he was a half-grown

dragon, far too massive to get airborne.

Then he became a green dragonfly. He buzzed up, looking startled, and more

than a little nervous now about the birds. "It's okay, Stanley," Ivy called. "The

others are just Grundy and Grandpa Trent; none of us eat bugs."

The dragonfly remained uncertain, for a real bird might say anything to lure a

tasty dragonfly within reach. Ivy saw the problem, for she perceived herself as a

bright child, and unlike her grandfather she could apply her magic talent to

herself as well as others. "Maybe if you were bigger -

"No problem," Grandpa Red-J said. Stanley became a larger dragonfly, more

massive than any of the birds, with six big bright wings and twice that many

teeth. Now he had much more confidence. He buzzed loudly and shot out an

experimental jet of fire, pleased. In his natural form all he had was steam.

They looped above the castle and headed north toward the Gap Chasm. Ivy

was thrilled to see Castle Roogna and its environs from above. It looked so small,

almost like an elaborate toy castle. The trees of the orchard resembled bushes.

The whole landscape of Xanth was a tapestry of greens, with fields and forests

alternating intriguingly. Here and there were the houses of people and the dens

of dragons and the warrens of unidentified creatures. She had explored some of

that on the ground once, two years ago, and met a nice goblin-girl and a cyclops and

of course Stanley Dragon himself. She'd have to do that again sometime!

Soon they were over the Gap. This was a huge, deep fissure that extended across

the peninsula of Xanth. For centuries it had been forgotten, not even appearing on

maps, because of the Forget-Spell on it, but now that spell was mostly gone. Ivy

wondered where that monstrous spell had come from, and who had made it, for

she was curious about everything. No one seemed to know about that Forget-Spell,

which she found very frustrating. Ivy liked to know everything that caught her

passing fancy, especially things that were secret.

A gleam caught her eye. There was a lake perched at the edge of the Chasm; in

fact it overlapped the Chasm slightly, but refused to drain down. The perversity

of the inanimate showed in various ways in Xanth; if a lake wanted to hold its

position, it used magic to do so. Ivy knew that Mundane lakes lacked that sort of

determination. That was just one of the squintillion things wrong with Mundania.

 

She peered more closely at the lake—and saw that the gleam was in the shape

of a star. It was a starfish in the water! Ivy knew what to do with a starfish.

"Star light, star bright, star-fish shining bright, I wish I may, I wish I might, have

this wish for my delight!" she chanted according to the magic formula. "I wish I

knew who made the Forget-Spell!" She waited expectantly, but nothing happened.

"Dummy!" Grundy said. "You didn't specify when!"

Ivy squawked with dismay. Magic always had to be nailed down tight, or it

slipped away. The starfish might wait till she was a mean old woman of sixteen or

seventeen to grant her wish, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Now a shape loomed ahead, in the air above the Gap. It was too large for an

ordinary bird, and too small for a dragon. This creature was extraordinarily thin,

with a body like a pole, and a huge, narrow, axe-beaked head.

"That's a hal-bird!" Grundy exclaimed, alarmed.

"That's awkward," Grandpa Trent said. "Though I am here in illusion, I still

must bring my apparent identity within my normal reach of a creature in order

to transform it. That battle-axe could go after one of you before I reach it."

Indeed, the hal-bird looked as if it were considering which one of them to chop up

first. "Transform Stanley into a griffin," Grundy suggested. "He'll tear the

hal-bird to dripping pieces." He glanced at Stanley, who seemed to be fascinated

by the Gap. This was hardly surprising, since he had once been the dread Gap

Dragon, and some day would be again, once he got over his rejuvenation.

"Don't you dare!" Ivy cried fiercely. "It's not right to hurt exotic wildlife!"

"That's my grandchild," Trent said approvingly. "Mayhem should never be

practiced unnecessarily, and that creature is on the Rare Species list, as is the

Gap Dragon. But what alternative do you recommend, Ivy?"

Ivy realized she was being tested. Her father was easy to manage; she had learned

how to do that from her mother, Irene. But her grandfather was of

sterner stuff, and though he humored her in little ways, he also expected her to

come up to princessly standards. That awed her when she happened to think

about it. Grandpa Trent expected her not only to be a sorceress, but to be smart

too, and even with her talent that was more of a challenge. "Uh—maybe we can

distract it—"

Trent was silent, and the hal-bird loomed nearer and larger. Its razor-sharp

blade-beak glinted. She had to figure out a distraction—and the pressure of the

situation distracted her. That was the problem with a real-life challenge; the

details interfered with being smart.

Then she saw a puff of vapor to the side. "Hey, isn't that your breath?" she called

to the hal-bird. "You'd better go catch your breath!"

The hal-bird turned its axe-head and peered at the puff, which accelerated its

drift. Horrified, the bird flapped off in pursuit of his breath. The rest of them were

left unmolested.

"That is the way for a future King of Xanth to do it," King Trent murmured

approvingly, and Ivy felt very good. She had come through.

They completed the Gap crossing and flew to a region of clouds. Ivy looked

around nervously, remembering the evil cloud, King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, her

nebulous enemy, but there was no sign of him here. Relieved, she relaxed and

enjoyed the company of those more gentle clouds. Certainly it would be unfair to

judge all clouds by a few ill-winds. These ones were fabulous, displaying

themselves in many fleecy forms and types; indeed, the cloudscape was more

phenomenal than the land-scape below. There were cloudy puffballs, toadstools,

trees, anvils and cliffs. One cloud was shaped like a Mundane pig, with a slot in its

back. "A cloud-bank!" Ivy exclaimed, recognizing it.

She flew to the left, to get in the middle of the formation. "I'm part of the cloud!"

she exclaimed.

"Princesses are never part of the cloud," Grandpa Trent said. Embarrassed, Ivy

dropped out and flew right.

Soon they closed on the North Village. This was a small collection of houses

arranged about a central large tree.

"Good ol' Justin Tree," Grundy remarked. "Ever since you transformed him,

fifty years ago, Magician Trent!"

"Transformed him?" Ivy asked, peering down at the tree. This sounded like

something she hadn't known about.

"Back before I was King," Trent explained. "Then I was known as the Evil

Magician, because I transformed anyone who got in my way. Ah, the impetuosity

of youth! In the Time of No Magic, about thirty years ago, he reverted to manform,

but he insisted that I return him to tree-form. He likes it that way."

"He's really a man?" Ivy asked, uncertain whether this was humor. Adults had

funny senses of humor, and could laugh at incomprehensible things while

frowning at what was really funny, like someone accidentally sitting on a

stink-horn.

"He started as a man," Trent agreed.

"And there's no other tree just like him?"

"No other," Trent agreed. "He is unique."

"Then he must need a woman-tree," she decided.

"Your ma's probably got a seed to grow one," Grundy said. "From the Tree of

Seeds."

"She's too busy for me," Ivy said, pouting. Her bird-beak wasn't very good for that,

however.

They swung down toward Justin Tree, coming in for a landing. Then Ivy saw

something interesting to the side. It seemed to be a mass of eyeballs that waved

about, peering up at the party. Ivy abruptly swerved to fly closer.

"Oh, that's nothing," Grundy said disparagingly. "Just a seeing-eye dogwood

tree."

"I want a branch of that!" Ivy insisted.

"Wait, Ivy!" Grandpa Trent called after her. "Things are not always what they

seem!"

But she was already dropping down to perch on the seeing-eye tree. "This will

only take a moment—" she began.

Suddenly a tentacle reached up and grabbed her. "Eeeek!" Ivy screamed in the

manner of her mother. There was a right way and a wrong way to scream; it was

one of the things a girl had to learn early.

That's no dogwood!" Grundy exclaimed. That's a tangler in disguise!"

Indeed it was! Now the illusion puffed away, and the dread tangle tree, one of

the worst vegetable monsters of Xanth, was revealed in all its horror. The

tentacles wrapped around Ivy's naked-J-bird body and drew her down into the

mass of it, where the terrible maw in the trunk awaited with its wooden teeth and

dripping saliva-sap.

Ivy screamed as piercingly as she could, no longer bothering with mere polite

eeeking. She was, after all, five years old, and this was business. But the tree only

slavered thicker sap and carried her in toward its orifice.

"...can't reach her in time!" she heard Grandpa Trent saying in the distance

beyond the barrier of tentacles. "Have to transform the tree instead..."

Then the tangle tree became a man. He was big and bare, except for a tangled

mass of green tentacle hair and brown root boots that maybe were his feet. He

was holding Ivy by her wings, about to cram the tasty blue-J into his mouth—but

now his mouth was too small. He paused, startled.

The green-J flew up. "Put her down, Tangleman!" Grundy cried.

Tangleman focused on the golem-J. "Why?" he demanded in a windy voice, for

that was normally all any tree had. Then he did a double-take, as if nearly blown

over; it was the first time he had heard himself speak

"'Cause if you don't, tentacle-top, Magician Trent will turn you into a skunk

cabbage!" Grundy said with gusto. He liked bullying a tangler, when he had the

chance.

Tangleman, horrified, bolted, carrying Ivy with him. He had forgotten her, but

lacked the wit to put her down before he panicked. He wasn't used to being a

flesh-and-bone creature, and wasn't good at it; he still thought of himself as a

block-head. He charged into the deepest available jungle of Xanth, where he felt

most at home. The green-J and dragonfly followed, but the tangler's progress was

so swift and erratic that they couldn't catch up. Magician Trent, present only in

illusion, had more trouble; he veered the wrong way, unable to reorient

effectively on such short notice.

Ivy managed to keep her wits about her, after almost dropping them, and

realized she was in no right-now-immediate danger, since the green giant was

paying no attention to her. She began to watch the scenery, to see if there was any

way to help herself. She spied a cabin with legs; it scrambled up to avoid the

charging tangler. Actually it was just a single room, a living room, that hadn't yet

found a home. No help there. In a moment they left it behind, the poor thing

seemed nearly dead from fright.

Tangleman charged up to a four-footed creature who had hooves and horns

but did not look aggressive. "Who you?" the green man demanded.

"I'm a steer," the creature replied. "Can I bum a smoke?"

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Ivy remarked wisely.

"Where's the fire?" Tangleman cried, alarmed. Trees could get quite nervous

about fire.

"That way," the bum steer said, pointing with its tail.

"That's the wrong way," another four-footed creature said. This one was

powerfully constructed, with stubby claws on its feet and a protruding muzzle,

and no hair on its body.

"Who you?" Tangleman asked.

"I am a bear."

"I see you bare!" Tangler said. "Who you?"

"Not bare. Bear," the creature said with dignity. "Bear witness. Don't trust the

bum steer; you won't find any fire where he tells you."

"No fire!" the tangler agreed, and charged off in that direction.

The bear witness was right; there was no fire there, which was exactly what

Tangleman was looking for. Instead there was a deep, dark shadow. The Tangler

paused just outside it, distrustfully. "Who you?"

"That's the shadow of a doubt," the bear witness called. "Ignore it, and it will go

away."

Tangleman stepped into the shadow, ignoring it, and sure enough, it faded

away and a beam of sunlight shone down.

Bong! The sound was dull but loud, startling them both. "Who you?" the green

man demanded, glaring about, but all he saw was a big stalky plant with bulbous

growths on each end.

This time Ivy knew. "That's just a dumb bell," Ivy said.

Tangleman scratched a wart on his wild head. "I not dumb bell," he protested.

"I worried."

"That's what happens when you scratch a worry wart," Ivy said. She had made

that mistake once herself, so she knew. The trouble with worry warts was that

sometimes it was almost impossible to ignore them.

omething clamped a pincer on his big brown toe. It was some

crab-grass, and it was really crabby. Tangleman leaped up

with a vegetable roar, and the grass let go. He landed in a bush

—and a flock of screaming meanies burst out, startled. Their

screams buffeted the tangler like the stings of B's, and he took

off again.

This time the green man charged into a strange region. It

was characterized by sound. There was a constant, stiff wind there, and the trees

had many radiating spokes that angled into that wind and generated sounds

from it. Each spoke had its own sustained note, and each tree had its own typical

pattern of notes. Large trees had complex chords; small trees had simpler

sounds, and saplings had but single notes.

As Tangleman charged through this forest, he moved past the trees, and the

sounds Ivy heard changed. The dominant chords shifted, forming a kind of

melody. "It's playing music!" she exclaimed.

Now that music became more pronounced. Definite themes developed,

governed by the progress of the listeners through the forest. Their motion

affected the music, and the effect was enhanced by Ivy's power. Ivy's attention

was enough to bring the qualities of anything out; now that she perceived the

music of the trees, the music became louder and more interesting than it had

been before. The forest became an orchestra.

Tangleman slowed, hearing the music, trying to face it. "Who you?" he

demanded.

"That's music, silly," Ivy said. "It's not a who, it's a what." She had realized that

the tangler wasn't such a bad man, even though he had been a bad tree. He was

just wild and confused. A little guidance could make him a decent companion.

He stopped, peering about, still trying to face the music. "Moo-sick?" Naturally

the music stopped when he did; now it was merely fixed sound, no notes

changing.

"Well, it used to be music," Ivy said. "You have to move to make it."

"Move," he said. "Move-sic." The concept was a real problem for him. He took a

step—and stumbled, for clinging vines had grown about his feet. He ripped his

legs free and charged on.

There was an earsplitting screech. Startled, Ivy looked down. Tangleman had

just stepped on one of the tails of a cat o' nine tails. The other eight tails were

swishing angrily as the cat got ready to pounce.

The tangler reacted in his natural manner; he grabbed for the cat with a dozen

tentacles and gaped his wooden maw. Of course in manform he didn't have

tentacles, so it was merely a one-handed grab, and his wooden maw was just a

fleshy mouth. But the ferocity of the gesture alarmed the cat, who retreated.

The green man took another step—and waded into a huge web. Immediately

several spider lilies swarmed down from their garden—and paused when they

saw the size of their prey.

Tangleman grabbed at a black rope, pulling himself out of the spider's range.

The rope yanked back, jerking itself out of his grasp as he stumbled into the

marsh surrounding it.

"Silly—that's a horsetail!" Ivy exclaimed. "Now we're stuck in the mud!"

Indeed they were. The tangler lifted one foot out with a great sucking noise, but

the other sank in deeper. Meanwhile the horsetails continued to swish angrily at

being disturbed, and one of them rose out of the muck to reveal a broad brown

hide. "A horse chestnut!" Ivy said, thrilled. She had liked horses ever since

encountering the night mares and day mares, but they were evasive and fleeting.

A genuine chestnut horse, however, suggested solider possibilities.

Tangleman sloughed his way toward firmer ground, but spied a bright metal

object there. It was copper, wrought in the likeness of a reptilian head, complete

with impressive fangs. It was mounted on a serpentine neck. As the green man

approached, the snake reared up on its coils and hissed menacingly. "Better stay

clear of that copperhead," Ivy advised.

He heeded her advice and squished to the side—only to come up against a

bank bristling with green claws that snapped alarmingly. "More crab-grass," Ivy

said. "Stay clear; you didn't like the one that champed your toe."

Tangleman was getting confused. Ivy realized that he just wasn't ready for the

flesh-folk's world. She wondered what it was like to be a tree, just soaking up

sunshine and grabbing whoever came near. She pictured herself as a tangler. If

any of that crab-grass scuttled near, she'd just snag it with a tentacle, and—

She paused. There, at the corner of her consciousness, was the day mare Imbri,

who had brought her the day-dream. "Imbri, you're out of your gourd!" Ivy

exclaimed happily.

Startled at being discovered, Mare Imbrium bolted. But Ivy wanted to tell her

about the horse chestnut. "Follow that mare!" she told Tangleman.

He tried, but his feet couldn't keep up. He started to fall forward. "Idiot!" Ivy

cried. "Don't fall on your face; you'll hurt the ground, not to mention getting my

nice blue feathers all gunky!"

If Tangleman thought it strange to be taking orders from a captured blue-J, he

didn't indicate this. He reached out desperately and grabbed the nearest thing,

which happened to be a cabbage palm. The huge fingers were normal, but the

palm was solid cabbage. Great leaves of it tore away, leaving Tangleman holding a

handful of green—and still falling. It was never wise to trust a cabbage-leaf, Ivy

knew.

Tangleman grabbed again, this time catching hold of a giant ear. It was a

cauliflower ear, pulpy around the edges and not very pretty, but it was well

anchored, and finally the tangler managed to pull himself out of the muck.

There stood Grandpa King Trent and Stanley Steamer and Grundy golem, all in

their natural forms. They had caught up while Tangleman was bogged down.

"Now—" Grandpa Trent began.

"Oh, don't make him change back here, Grandpa!" Ivy exclaimed, abruptly

returning to her own form as his magic touched her. "This is no place for a tangle

tree!"

Trent paused, not making the transformation. "What did you have in mind,

Ivy?" He always encouraged her to think things out and make her own decisions,

because that was what she would have to do when she eventually became King of

Xanth.

"Tree?" Tangleman asked. "Me no tree!"

"Well, you started as one, vegetable-brain," Grundy said.

"He means he doesn't want to be a tree again," Ivy explained.

"I'm afraid we can't leave him as a man," Grandpa Trent said. "He would not

survive long, with his lack of man-experience."

Ivy knew not to argue with her grandfather, but she tried to divert his intent.

"Maybe we can find him a good place to be a tree, a better place than he had

before—"

"I'll ask the top banana," Grundy said. He trotted over to a plant that bore a

single monstrous banana, and made silent noises at it. Grundy could talk to

anything; that was his talent. "It says to ask the big potato, whose eyes see all,"

and he trotted across to the potato that sat on the ground and had eyes all over.

"It says it saw a lot of real peaches and tomatoes not far from here," he reported.

"They're young and sweet and really nice company."

"No doubt," Grandpa Trent agreed. "Very well—we shall plant him there."

They started toward the promising spot. Tangleman, responsive to Ivy's talent,

had calmed down considerably, and went where she directed without protest,

still carrying her though she was now a regular girl. Unfortunately it wasn't a simple

walk, because Ivy was not only a Sorceress, she was a child, and she

remained interested in things. She spied a hem lock growing beside the path, and

quickly had the tangleman set her down so she could unlock it and put it on her

dress, locking it in place there; it looked very nice as a border, and of course it

would never slip.

Then she found a honey comb that the B's were no longer using, and used it to

comb out her tangled hair. She paused at a small silvery pond to look at the

silverfish swimming in it. She reached in to pick one up, but it turned out to be a

goldfish, very pretty and heavy metal, but not much value out of the water. She

plucked a golden rod growing at the bank and used it as a staff, though it too was

quite heavy. So she threw it in the water, making waves, and the waves were

enhanced by her presence, spreading into the air, and the air waves shook a

nearby date tree so that the down-dates quivered and some of the up-dates at

the top were shaken loose. Ivy grabbed one; it was in the shape of a little 8

connected to a little D, as was proper for a D8. She nibbled on the 8 part, as that

was all of it that could be ate.

Meanwhile, Stanley's attention was wandering, so he sniffed along a brown

hedge and finally took an experimental bite out of it. The hedge threw up its

limbs, scattered leaves all around, and scurried away. It was a hedge hog, and

didn't like getting chomped by a dragon, even a small one.

They moved on, past a clump of hypnogourds. "I looked into one of those

once," Grandpa Trent remarked. "Back in the days when they were less common,

before I was King. I—"

But meanwhile Ivy had spied something bright lying on the ground. She picked

it up. It was a glass disk with a handle on it. "What's this?"

Grundy peered at it. "A magnifying glass. They have them in Mundania."

"You mean it makes things bigger?"

"Sure, Pipsqueak. You just look through it, and—"

"Oh, goody!" Ivy held the glass up and looked through it at the nearest gourd,

which grew under a canopy that was anchored by several mussels that seemed to

enjoy stretching themselves.

Immediately the gourd became much larger. In fact, it swelled to monstrous,

with a peephole twice the size of a port-hole. Startled, they all looked at it—and

into it, and were caught by the spell of the gourd.

They stood in a haunted house. The walls were rickety, covered with badly faded

and peeling wallpaper, and the light was gloomy. There were handsome

spider webs in the upper corners, and a mouse squeaked with surprise and

scooted into a hole.

Ivy was delighted. "What's this?" she asked.

"We're in the gourd, dodo!" Grundy said. "You magnified it so we all saw into the

peephole, and now we're stuck until someone breaks our eye-contact and lets us

out."

"Which may not necessarily be soon," Grandpa Trent said heavily. "We're deep

in the jungle; no one knows where we are, or what has happened."

Grundy glanced at him curiously. "Say, King Trent—you're only with us in

illusion. How come you got caught?"

"I'm not sure," Trent confessed. "I have not had a great deal of experience with

gourds, and all of that has been involuntary. I presume that if I can see about me

in illusion, I can also be trapped by the gourd in that state."

"But since the Sorceress Iris generates the illusion—"

Trent shook his head. "Evidently my wife doesn't realize. She's not as young as

she once was, and doesn't always pay close attention. In any event, I am not eager

to remain here longer than necessary. Let's try to find a way out."

"But getting out from the inside of a gourd has never been done before," Grundy

protested. "It has to be done from the outside. Only the night mares can pass out

of the gourd freely."

"There is usually a first time for everything," King Trent said positively, but he

looked slightly negative. He wasn't as young as he used to be, either; this was

evidently a strain.

Meanwhile, Stanley was sniffing around. He hadn't been in a place like this

before. In a moment he spooked a ghost, who had evidently led a sheltered life

and never seen a green dragon before. The ghost floated up, considered, and then

tried to scare the dragon by making a horrendous face. Stanley was not scared;

he was annoyed. He responded with a jet of steam. The ghost zipped out of the

way, alarmed. Now it was angry, it drifted close to a dragonfly ear and yelled

"Boooo!"

Furious, Stanley leaped at the ghost, trying to chomp it with his teeth.

Naturally they closed on nothing. He crashed into the wall, breaking through it.

Two more ghosts, a haunt, and a spectre started up, spooked. It seemed they

had been napping in the wall. Stanley pounced on them, too, snapping violently for

their backs. But none of these were tangible. In the process he stirred up something

else. Something strange.

It lifted from a crevice and spread out above the dragon in a somber cloud. Pale

white streamers hung from it. "What's that?" Ivy asked nervously.

"It looks like ectoplasm," Grandpa Trent said. "Generally harmless, but it would

be best to leave it alone, as it can have unusual properties."

"Stanley, leave that icky-plasm alone!" Ivy ordered the dragon preemptorily.

But already Stanley was leaping at it. His jaws closed on the cloud. It squished,

and its streamers wrapped around the dragon's snout. He tossed his head about,

trying to get the stuff off his face and into his mouth, but it just stretched like taffy

and clung. Stanley smacked his head into the wall, trying to knock the ectoplasm

free, but merely succeeded in bashing another hole. Finally he leaped right

through the hole, carrying the stuff along with him, streamers of it trailing back.

Tangleman, convinced something was going on, charged after the dragon,

knocking out more pieces of wall. Grandpa Trent winced. "The Night Stallion will

never forgive me for this!"

"Who?" Ivy asked.

"He runs the gourd-world," Grundy explained. "You know—the boss of the

night mares. We're ruining one of his best sets."

"Oh." Ivy hadn't thought of that. She had considered the wall-bashing

interesting; now she realigned her reaction. She hurried after dragon and

tangler. "Boys! Boys!" she scolded. "Stop that this instant! What do you think this

is, a battlefield?"

Grandpa Trent rolled his eyes—adults did that every so often without

apparent reason—and followed.

Ivy's reprimand was effective. Dragon and Tangleman drew up short, looking

abashed. Stanley had finally scraped most of the ectoplasm off his snout. The

stuff quickly floated elsewhere, having had enough of the dragon.

They were in a chamber with a table, and on the table was a box. On the box

was a small green plant. "Oh, goody!" Ivy cried, reaching for it.

"Hey, you don't know what's in it, Turnip!" Grundy warned. He always called her

that, knowing she hated both turnips and turndown. "Might be a hobgoblin!"

"No, Rapunzel wouldn't do that," Ivy said confidently, lifting the box down to

the floor.

"Rapunzel?" Grandpa Trent inquired warily.

"My pun-pal," Ivy explained, admiring the box. She liked wrapped packages.

"Pun-pal? Perhaps my ancient brain is ossifying. If you would explain -

"It's simple, Grandpa! We can't read or write yet, so we can't be pen-pals, so

we're pun-pals instead. We send each other punny things. Or she does, anyway; I

send her regular things like flowers and pebbles, and she seems to like them very

well."

"Flowers and pebbles?" Trent asked. "They're rather common, don't you think?"

"Not where she lives," Ivy said. "She's in an ivory tower or somewhere, and she

can't get out. Her guardian's an old witch who never lets her near any of the good

stuff like mud or peanut butter."

"I can't think why," Trent murmured, smiling in that devious way adults had.

"'Cause it gets in her hair," Ivy explained matter-of-factly. "She has real, real

long tresses she can dangle right down to the ground outside the tower, but she

can't get down herself. So I send her all the things she can't get, and she sends me

puns 'cause she's a pun-dit."

"That does sound like fair exchange, now that you have explained it," Grandpa

Trent agreed gravely. "But shouldn't you tell your father, King Dor, about this

person being held captive in a tower? We don't encourage that sort of thing in

Xanth, you know."

Ivy considered. "Maybe I should. But Rapunzel says she's of elven descent;

maybe she doesn't count."

"She counts," King Trent assured her.

"How do you know this box is from her?" Grundy asked. "Or that it's for you?"

"I know what her boxes look like, silly! See, it's a tress-ract."

"Tesseract?" Trent inquired.

"Tress-ract, 'cause of her tresses," Ivy explained patiently. It seemed that her

grandfather had not been fooling about his brain mossy-fying; he was pretty slow

on concepts. "And it's for me 'cause it's got my ivy on it."

"So it does," Trent agreed.

"How's it get here in the gourd?" Grundy asked. "And how'd she know to send it

here, right where you'd be? Does she live in the gourd?"

Ivy shrugged. "'Course not, silly! She's in an ivory tower. I told you. She's not in

the real world, really. She just sends the box to where I am, and here's where I

am."

"Perhaps we had better see what's in the box," Grandpa Trent suggested. "I note

that it says O-PUN on the top."

"And PUNDORA on the side," Grundy said. "Are you sure it's safe to open

Pundora's box?"

But Ivy was already opening it. She reached in and brought out a thin cylinder,

pointed at one end. "A pun-cil," she explained, waving it about. As she did, a line

appeared in the air, remaining in place. She turned it around and rubbed the

other end along the line, and it disappeared. Then she lost interest and gave the

pun-cil to Tangleman, who waved it about, admiring the lines of it. They did

vaguely resemble tentacles.

Ivy reached in again and drew out a bundle of sticks. When she untied them,

they sprang out into an enclosure like a play-pun, but messier and a lot worse

smelling. "Oh, a pig-pun," she said, losing interest again. She was, after all, only a

little girl, so her attention span was no longer than she was.

Tangleman climbed into the pig-pun and sat, satisfied. He liked rich soil.

Next she brought out a soft-ball that radiated small shining rods. "A puncushion,"

she said, and carelessly tossed it in to Tangleman, who tried to chew on

it. He thought the puns sticking out of it were thorns.

Then Ivy found a basket of warm-smelling pastries. "Hot cross puns!" she

exclaimed, delighted. Indeed, each had an angry face painted with icing on its

top, and fairly steamed when touched. Ivy ignored the frown and bit into one,

whereupon the icing-face smiled. "They don't like waiting to be eaten," she

explained around her mouthful. "When they wait too long, they get cold. That's

why they're so cross." She handed them out to the others. Soon everyone was

eating them, and all the pastries were smiling. They tasted very good. "Rapunzel is

pretty good with baking-puns," Ivy explained.

"Upun my soul," Grundy agreed, munching his own pastry, though it was as

massive as he was. Fortunately he had a big mouth.

When they had snacked, Ivy brought out the rest of the items in the box. There

were two doll-like figures identified as Puns and Judy, and a pair of snake eyes on

small cubes that must have fallen from the Ivory Tower, and a couple of

miscellaneous spells locked in globes. Grundy looked at these, and identified

them as captured noises; one was an outcry, the other a sound-of-mind.

That was it; the pundora box was empty at last. Ivy grimaced. "Not much, this

time. Well, I'll send her some stuff back." She walked about, picking up pieces of

plaster, wood and wallpaper and tossing them into the box. A poltergeist

wandered through the room, rattling its chain; Ivy grabbed the chain, starting a

tug-of-war, till Grandpa Trent interceded.

"That chain belongs to the ghost," he explained. "It's not right to take it."

"Oh, all right!" Ivy said with bad grace, suddenly letting go of her end so that the

ghost shot backwards through a wall. "But I don't have enough things for the box

yet."

Now they all cast about, scavenging for fragments, until there was a fair

selection. Then Ivy snapped off one of her hairs and tucked it in the top of the

box, in this manner addressing it to Rapunzel of the long tresses. She clapped her

hands, and the box vanished.

"Live and learn," Grundy remarked. "I never heard of a pun-pal before."

"Lots of things you don't know, golem," Ivy said smugly.

"But our problem remains," Grandpa Trent said. "We need to find some way out

of the gourd, and I don't believe walking about will do it."

"This is probably the gourd Mare Imbri was heading for when the tangler

chased her," Grundy said. "As a night mare, she can travel in and out at will.

Maybe we can get her to carry a message to the Sorceress Iris—"

"Imbri doesn't use the gourds anymore, silly," Ivy said. "She's a day mare now. She

won't come here."

"Anyway, Peanut," Grundy said—he always called her that—"we have to

break the eye-contact we have with the peephole of the gourd from the outside,

not the inside."

"Which means we'll have to be creative," Trent said. "Let's see what we have

here." He assembled the remaining items from the pun box. "Here—let's pass

these out and let each person try to fashion what he has into a device for escape."

No one seemed to be very positive about this, but each accepted a couple of

puns. The green tangler got the two noise spells, because they seemed the least

promising. He tried to eat one, but the globe resisted his teeth; he shook one, but

the noise merely swirled around inside. Finally he bashed the two together, hard.

They cracked and the sounds escaped. There was a halfway deafening shout—

and suddenly the group was standing outside the huge gourd. Tangleman,

startled, pushed his fist forward into the gourd, shattering it.

"We're out!" Grundy exclaimed. "But how?"

The only one of us to act was Tangleman," Grandpa Trent said. "But I don't see

how cracking the noise spells could have -

"Ask the mussels," Ivy suggested.

Trent looked at her. "The mussels?"

"They covered up the peephole," she said. "Why?"

Grundy asked the mussels, who had indeed contracted and drawn the canopy

down over the peephole, breaking the people's line of sight and freeing them from

the gourd's spell. The mussels replied that they had reacted to a mind-jolting

outcry from within the gourd, that had so alarmed them that they had

immediately contracted.

"So it was Tangleman!" Grandpa Trent exclaimed. "He smashed the sound-ofmind

into the outcry, and the result was so loud it reached right out of the gourd!"

"That's the nature of outcries," Grundy said. "They've got to get out of whatever

they're in. Only the magic of the spell kept that outcry contained before, and

when that cracked—"

"Now let's get on to my house," Grandpa Trent said a trifle grimly. Adults were

like that, their moods changing inexplicably. "Before we get into any more

mischief."

"But what about Tangleman?" Ivy asked. "He saved us, by being the most

creative, didn't he?"

Grandpa Trent sighed, then quirked a smile. "I suppose he does deserve credit

for that. Perhaps he'll work out in our society after all, if he wants to. Very well,

we'll bring him along too." He glanced about. "We can't risk any more of this jungle

trek," and he transformed them all back into birds, including Tangleman, and

they flew in a flock to the North Village.

They had a wonderful time at Grandpa Trent and Grandma Iris's house, and

Grundy took over the management of the tangler, perching on his green shoulder

and telling him what to do to get along in the strange world of flesh folk. The

golem was good at that sort of thing, and it did get him off Ivy's case. So all

problems were neatly solved.

But two days later, when Ivy returned to Castle Roogna, and her parents heard

about the great adventure, they acted in the truly inexplicable manner of adults.

They grounded her, for no reason at all. It was very unfair. •

Other deleted sections from the book:

(and one paragraph deleted from p. 435 of manuscript:)

The "creative" effort our heroes made to get out of the gourd derives from an

exercise we were given when we attended our daughter's Cheryl's gifted class

summer program, and were given envelopes containing an assortment of things

like paper clips, beads, paper and yarn, and told to make something creative

from this. Naturally I botched mine, since I had a truly fantastic notion that fell

apart in practice, exactly as my novels do, but I thought the idea worth salvaging.

So here's the yarn!

(And from manuscript p. 432)

...But since this is getting out of hand, I don't promise to do this indefinitely,

and will try to close down Pundora's box. So those of you who remain out there,

bursting with puns—stifle them, because there's only so much of this nonsense

anyone can take. One fan even sent me the first chapter of his Dictionary of Puns;

I used none of those, because he hopes to have that published independently; he

just wanted marketing advice. By the time Lye sees print—please, no remarks

about what kind of eyes it has to see anything—I should have completed the

following Xanth novel, and plans are inchoate beyond that, so any puns you send

are apt to be wasted anyway.

(Some of this duplicates the published Author's Note; I just wanted to have a

record of what I did originally say about the cessation of puns.)

Todd Hamilton, Jody Lynn Nye, and Piers Anthony

OUR GUIDES TO THE LAND OF XANTH

 

 

Piers Anthony is the bestselling author of the Xanth series, The

Tarot, Bio of a Space Tyrant series, The Adept series, The

Incarnations of Immortality series, and more.

 

Jody Lynn Nye is the author of the Encyclopedia of Xanth, Ghost

of a Chance, Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, Dragonharper,

Dragonfire and contributor to The Fleet. Her new novel, Mythology

101, will appear in March 1990.

 

Todd Hamilton is a John W. Campbell award nominee for his

novel The Gamesman. He and Jim Clouse are also the artists on

Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber and the

Dragonlover's Guide to Pern.

 

James Clouse has previously collaborated with Todd Hamilton

on Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber and the

Dragonlover's Guide to Pern. Clouse has had maps and artwork

appear in products from TSR, Inc. and Mayfair Games, Inc.

 

Piers and Carol Anthony  Jody Lynn Nye, Todd Hamilton,            Author and Night Mare