Golem in the Gears (32 page)

So this was, indeed, a duel to the death, or the equiv- alent. Whoever passed through the loop would be fin- ished, certainly. If he dumped the Hag through, Rapunzel would be forever free of that terrible threat. If, on the other hand, the Hag dumped him through...

Lathe conducted him to the site of the trial. This was outside the Elm; in fact, right beside it. A number of thin lines descended from the foliage, dangling down to near the ground. A smaller number of platforms were perched on poles rising from the ground. The poles were slender, and reached about halfway up the trunk of the tree, so that the little platforms swayed gently in the breeze. Grundy saw that there was a framework of slats about each platform, so that a person standing on one could have handholds. Still, it looked precarious. He would pre- fer to trust himself to a line, assuming that his abraded hands remained strong enough to hold on. The salve had done a marvelous job, so that the skin was now intact, but scars remained.

He peered to the ground, a dizzying distance below. There, within the ring of poles, was a large funnel that glistened; probably it had been greased. In the center was a small dark hole: the loop.

Lathe handed him a knife. It was small, suitable for his hand, and the blade was honed to a feather edge on either side.

"One slash will sever a line," the elf explained. "Sev- eral slashes will be required to cut through a pole. How- ever, either action takes time, and therefore sacrifices mobility."

Why was he saying that? Grundy shrugged, studying the layout to see whether any strategy suggested itself.

There were six boxes, and four lines dangled near the comers of each. The circle of boxes was tight enough so that it looked possible to swing from any one of them to any other; but they were still far enough apart so that any attempt to jump between them was bound to be futile. His challenge was to isolate the Hag in a box, and then dump her into that funnel below. Could he do it? He had to!

Now Rapunzel appeared, surrounded by elven maids. She remained elf-sized, but was still phenomenally beau- tiful despite her brief hair. She had to remain on a branch separate from the arena, where she could watch without interfering.

"Oh, Grundy!" she cried. "My premonition has come true! I wish we had not come to this place!"

He wished so too! His effort to provide her fair expo- sure to the elven culture had proven disastrous. But now she was apt to become a part of it, in the worst way.

And Prince Gimlet arrived. He was in brief athletic clothes and had exchanged his gimlet for a double-edged knife like Grundy's, only larger. The Prince had the advan-

tage of size and strength, but those would not count for much as long as the two contestants did not touch each other, and might even be to his disadvantage on the pre- carious boxes. So this might indeed be a fair trial. "Are the litigants ready?" one of the elves inquired. "Ready," the Hag said with confidence. "Uh, yes," Grundy mumbled. He hoped he was!

"Begin."

The Prince caught hold of the line closest to him and swung in to the nearest platform. Grundy found a line just within his reach, and did the same. He felt the stiff- ness in his arms anew, but had no real trouble. The contest

was on!

The Prince took another line, and launched himself directly across the circle. Grundy hadn't expected this and stood and stared for a moment. Then he realized that the Prince's blade was aimed right at him, as the elf swung one-handed. He could be dispatched by the knife directly, then tossed into the loop! What difference did it make

how he died?

He grabbed almost blindly at a line to the side and jumped off. His aim was bad, and he missed the adjacent platform. He swung erratically across to the one beyond— but already the elf was pursuing him, knife still extended.

This time Grundy got more of his wits about him. He hung onto the line he had, set his feet against the edge of the box, and shoved violently off. He sailed across the circle to the opposite platform, landed on it, then quickly cut the line he had used so that it would not swing back to the elf. He was learning!

But the elf merely took another line, and came after him again. Grundy didn't dare go across the center, when the elf was doing it; they would meet, and Grundy would

be the one stabbed, for the elf's reach was twice his own. He had to move off to the side.

The elf pursued him in this manner all about the circle, and as they moved more of the lines were cut, until Grundy discovered that there had been a pattern in the pursuit. He was now trapped on a platform from which all the lines had been lost—but he had let go of his incoming line before realizing that. He couldn't get away!

He turned and braced himself, expecting the elf to come at him blade-first, but that wasn't the case. That would have meant a suggestion of a fighting chance. Instead, the elf handed himself down the line and swung down below, catching at the pole on which Grundy's box was perched. Then he sawed at it with the knife.

That had to be stopped! Grundy leaped out desperately, catching the upper section of the line that was supporting the elf. He couldn't swing it anywhere, because it was now anchored below, but he hoped to jerk it out of the elf's grasp and strand him on the pole.

It didn't work. The elf was far stronger than he was, and easily retained control of the line while continuing to saw at the pole. If Grundy slid down the rope, that knife would finish him; if he did not, his pole would soon fall, and he would be stuck right here, waiting for the elf to climb up and get him.

Then he had a desperate notion. If he could exert a sudden, hard shock to the line—

He reached up and sliced through the line above him. Suddenly he was falling. He hung on to his severed seg- ment of the line, knowing that his weight would jerk at the elf when the slack was taken up.

Abruptly, it happened. The elf screamed as he was wrenched off the pole, and he fell toward the funnel.

Then the flaw in his plan occurred to Grundy. He was

falling too! Somehow he had overlooked that when the seemingly brilliant strategy came to him. They were both descending to their doom!

Grundy's feet struck the funnel first, and he flipped involuntarily, absorbing the shock, and rolled toward the center. The elf landed more heavily, but there was some give in the runnel, and no bones were broken. Both of them slid down the greased slope to the loop.

Grundy heard Rapunzel's scream of horror. It had probably been issued some time ago, and was only just now catching up with him. Then he plunged through the

dark hole of the loop.

He seemed to be in an opaque tunnel, falling yet float- ing. Then he found himself standing on a cavern floor, unharmed. In a moment the Hag landed beside him.

"Wretch!" she screamed. "Look what you've done!"

"I took you with me," Grundy said with a certain sat- isfaction. "Now you won't get Rapunzel's body."

The Hag looked around. "We'll see. The Brain Coral sometimes releases its acquisitions, if they have some- thing to offer in exchange."

"The Brain Coral?"

"Didn't you recognize the loop, Golem? It's one of the entrances to the realm of the Coral. Nothing returns because the Coral keeps what it gets, until it decides to

release it."

Now Grundy remembered. Long ago, he had been in the nether region ofXanth, with Bink and Chester Centaur and Crombie the soldier and Good Magician Humfrey. Horrendous things had happened. They had encountered the Demon X(A/N)th, who was the source of magic, and for a time there had been no magic in Xanth. He didn't care to go through that again! He had been a true golem, then, and when the magic had departed, so had his ani- mation, leaving him as a tangle of cloth and wood. Only when the magic returned had he revived—with one awful headache.

But the residence of the Brain Coral was under a black lake whose water slowly pickled anything in it and stored creatures in a half-dead state indefinitely. There was no water here. Instead there was a spacious dry chamber whose far wall was—

"Oh-oh," Grundy murmured, shivering.

"Maybe if I give you to the Brain Coral, it will let me go," the Hag said. "Or I might give it this elf-prince body, and take yours, and return to claim Rapunzel. She would do anything for you, without even questioning it. Then—"

"This isn't the Brain Coral's residence," Grundy said.

"Of course it is! I told you, I recognized the loop. I've never been here before, of course, but I know about the Brain Coral from way back. It's always ready to deal."

"Maybe once the loop led to the Brain Coral," Grundy said. "But this time it glitched. This is—" He found him- self unable to say the dread words.

"If you're trying to talk your way out of this, Golem, it won't work. I will simply haul you in." And the Prince's hand reached out and grabbed Grundy by the collar.

Grundy pulled away—and the elf's hand could not retain the grasp. "You aren't near the Elf Elm any more, Hag," he said. "That body is no longer enhanced by magic strength. Also—"

The Hag dived for him. "I'll haul you in anyway, Golem!"

Grundy dodged aside, and the body of the elf stumbled past him. Then it stiffened. The aristocratic mouth opened and the eyes stared.

The body's impetus carried it forward another step, and animation returned. "What—?"

"You stepped into a Thought," Grundy said.

"A what?"

"A Thought. They exist here in bands, invisible, and when you step into one—"

"A hemale and a shemale were—it was grotesque!"

"You should talk. Hag! Here you are in a male body—"

"And an itmale looking on, seeking to—to—"

"And you thought you were experienced," Grundy said wryly. "Well, go step into another Thought vortex, and get some real experience!"

"But—"

"This isn't the cave of the Brain Coral," Grundy said. "It's the cave of the Demon X(A/N)th. And if we wake him—"

"It can't be!" She took a step toward him. "You're just saying that, Golem, to get out of—"

"Don't move about too much. Hag, or you'll—"

The elf's face froze again. Too late—she was already in another Thought vortex.

Grundy backed away—and stepped into one himself. It was the Demon S(I/R)ius, in Anonymale aspect, seeking a blood sacrifice for the autumn festival. Canicula, here is the fawn-colored doggie for thy—

Grundy emerged from the vortex, shaking. He didn't want to be the canine sacrifice for that festival!

The Hag had also emerged. "Unspeakable!" she spat. "I must get out of here!"

"Don't charge blindly about!" Grundy warned.

Again he was too late. She charged blindly toward the far wall, stiffened and stumbled as she tore through a

Thought, righted herself, lumbered into another vortex, and finally crashed into the wall.

"Trouble!" Grundy muttered.

For that was no ordinary wall. It was in the form of a huge stone face, and she had just banged into its mon- strous nose.

That did it. An enormous eye blinked. The Demon X(A/N)th was waking!

The whole cave shuddered as the face came alive. The Hag stood there before it, amazed. She might have existed for centuries, but she had had no experience with this ent- ity ! Grundy had — and knew that no matter how bad his sit- uation had been a moment ago, it was now infinitely worse.

The phenomenal orifice of a mouth opened. "WHO COMES HERE?" it demanded.

The Hag didn't answer, so Grundy had to. "It's an accident, Demon!" he quavered.

"THEN I WILL DESTROY THAT ACCIDENT THAT DISTURBS MY REPOSE!"

That was exactly what Grundy had been afraid of. The Demon X(A/N)th cared nothing for the lives of ordinary creatures, and only wanted them to stay clear. There was supposed to be a magic shield to prevent anyone from blundering in, but apparently the loop had bypassed that. Now the Demon, the source of all this land's magic, was aroused and angry, ready to swat Grundy and perhaps the rest of Xanth out of existence as someone would an annoying fly.

What did he have to lose, now? "You wouldn't do that if you had any notion of the problems of real people!" Grundy cried.

The Demon paused. "It talks back?"

Grundy plowed on heedlessly. "You're omnipotent! You don't have any real problems! No wonder you don't care

about ours! But if you were in my place for even one minute, you'd change your mind!"

The Demon considered. "Is this a wager?" he inquired mildly.

"Whatever you want to call it! You don't know a thing about real life!"

"Very well. We shall change places—for one minute."

Suddenly Grundy's consciousness was in the body and brain of the Demon. His gaze penetrated the rock of the physical realm as if it were mere haze and reached into the framework of the planets. He was in a foul mood, because he had been losing significance for several decades and seemed to be unable to reverse the trend. While it was true that he was omnipotent in the physical sense, he was not in the social sense, and the other Demons of the System were gaining on him. E