“Excise the eyes,” Smash suggested, covering his own gross orbs with his gauntleted mitts.
“Of course the monster is right,” Amolde said, not looking at Smash, whom he seemed to find objectionable. “That is the obvious solution.”
It was hardly obvious to Dor. “How can covering our eyes get us to the rainbow?”
“It can hardly appear distant if you don’t look at it,” Amolde said.
“Yes, but-“
“I get it,” Grundy said. “We spot it, then close our eyes and go to where we saw it, and it can’t get away because we aren’t looking at it. Simple.”
“But somebody has to look at it, or it isn’t there,” Irene protested. “Or is it?”
“Chet can look at it,” Grundy said. “He’s not going on it any way.”
Dor distrusted this, but the others seemed satisfied. “Let’s get some sleep tonight and see what happens tomorrow,” he said, hoping it all made sense.
They slept late, but that was all right because the intermittent rain wasn’t due until midmorning. Amolde dutifully acquainted the centaur Elders with his situation; as expected, they encouraged him to depart the Isle forever at his very earliest convenience, without directly referring to the reason for his loss of status in their community. A Magician was not wanted here; they could not be comfortable with him. They would let it be known that Amolde was retiring for reasons of health, so as to preserve his reputation, and they would arrange to break in a new archivist. No one would know his shame. To facilitate his prompt departure they provided him with a useful assortment of spells and counterspells for his journey, and wished him well.
“The hypocrites!” Irene exclaimed. “For fifty years Amolde serves them well, and now, suddenly, just because-“
“I said you would not comprehend the nuances of centaur society,” Chet reminded her, though he did not look comfortable himself.
Irene shut up rebelliously. Dor liked her better for her feeling, however. It was time to leave Centaur Isle, and not just because they had a new mission.
The intermittent clouds formed and made ready to shower. Dor set up a smudge pot and got a column of smudge angling up to intersect the cloud level. They applied the salve to their feet and hands, invoked the curse- counterspells Amolde distributed, and marched up the column. Amolde adjusted to this odd climb remarkably well for his age; he had evidently kept himself in traveling shape by making archaeological field trips.
For a moment they paused to turn back to face Chet, who was standing on the beach, watching for the rainbow. Dor found himself choking up, and could only wave.
“I hope to see you again, cousin,” Amolde called. Chet was not related to him; what he referred to was the unity of their magic talents.
“And meet your sire.” And Chet smiled, appreciating the thought.
When they reached the cloud layer, they donned blindfolds.
“Clouds,” Dor said, “tell us where the best path to the top of the rainbow is. Don’t let any of us step too near the edge of you.”
“What rainbow?” the nearest cloud asked.
“The one that is about to form, that my friend Chet Centaur will see from the ground.”
“Oh, that rainbow. It isn’t here yet. It hasn’t finished its business on the eastern coast of Xanth.”
“Well, guide us to where it’s going to be.”
“Why don’t you open your eyes and see it for yourself?” the canny cloud asked. The inanimate was often perverse, and the many folds and convolutions of clouds made them smarter than average.
“Just guide us,” Dor said.
“Aw.” But the cloud had to do it.
There was a popping sound behind them, down on the ground.
“That’s the popcorn I gave Chet,” Irene said. “I told him to set it off when he saw the rainbow. Now that rainbow is fixed in place, as long as he looks at it and we don’t; we must be almost upon it.”
“Are we?” Dor asked the cloud.
“Yeah,” the cloud conceded grudgingly. “It’s right ahead, though it has no head. That’s cumulus humor.”
“Rainbow!” Dor called. “Sing out If you hear me!”
Back came the rainbow’s song: “Tra-la-la-fol-de-rol!” It sounded beautiful and multicolored.
They hurried over to it. Once they felt its smooth surface projecting above the cloud and climbed upon it, they removed their blindfolds; the rainbow could no longer work its deceptive magic.
The rainbow was fully as lovely as it sounded. Bands of red and yellow, blue and green, extended lengthwise, and sandwiched between them, where ground observers couldn’t see them, were the secret riches of the welkin: bands of polka-dot, plaid, and checkerboard. Some internal bands were translucent, and some blazed with colors seldom imagined by man, like fortissimo, charm, phon, and torque. It would have been easy to become lost in their wonders, and Irene seemed inclined to do just that, but the rainbow would not remain here long. It seemed rainbows had tight schedules, and this one was due for a showing somewhere in Mundania in half an hour.
Some magic, it seemed, did extend to Mundania; Dor wondered briefly whether the Mundanes would have the same trouble actually catching up to a rainbow, or whether there it would stay in place regardless how the viewers moved.
Amolde brought out his rainbow-travel span, which was sealed in a paper packet. He tore it open-and abruptly they began to slide.
The speed was phenomenal. They zoomed past the clouds, then down into the faintly rainy region below, plunging horrendously toward the sea to the north.
Below them was the land of Xanth, a long peninsula girt by thin islands along the coastlines. Across the center of it was the jagged chasm of the Gap that separated the northern half of Xanth from the southern. It appeared on no maps because no one remembered it, but this was no map. It was reality, as viewed from the rainbow. There were a number of lakes, such as Ogre-Chobee in the south, but no sign of the human settlements Dor knew were there. Man had simply not made much of an impression on Xanth, physically.
“Fun begun!” Smash cried joyfully.
“Eeek-my skirt!” Irene squealed as the mischievous gusts whipped it up, displaying her legs to the whole world. Dor wondered why she insisted on wearing a skirt despite such constant inconveniences; pants of some kind would have solved the problems decisively. Then it occurred to him that she might not want that particular problem solved. She was well aware that her legs were the finest features of a generally excellent body and perhaps was not averse to letting the world know it also. If she constantly protested any inadvertent exposures that occurred, how could anyone blame her for showing herself off? She had a pretty good system going.
Dor and Grundy and Amolde, less sanguine about violence than the ogre and less modest than Irene, hung on to the sliding are of the rainbow and stared ahead and down with increasing misgiving.
How were they to stop, once the end came? The descent was drawing close at an alarming velocity. The northern shoreline of Xanth loomed rapidly larger, the curlicues of beaches magnifying. The ocean in this region seemed oddly reddish; Dor hoped that wasn’t from the blood of prior travelers of the rainbow. Of course it wasn’t; how could he think such a thought?
Then the travel-spell reversed, and they slid rapidly slower until, as they reached the water at the end of the rainbow, they were moving at no more than a running pace. They plunged into the crimson water and swam for the shore to the north. The color was not blood; it was translucently thin, up close. Dor was relieved.
Now that he could no longer see it from the air, Dor remembered other details of Xanth. The length of it was north-south, with the narrowest portion near where his grandfather Elder Roland’s village was, in the middle north on the western side. At the top, Xanth extended west, linking to Mundania by the isthmus they were headed for-and somehow Mundania beyond that isthmus seemed huge, much larger than Xanth. Dor decided that must be a misimpression; surely Mundania was about the same size as Xanth, or somewhat smaller. How could a region of so little importance be larger, especially without magic?
Now they came to the shallows and waded through the dark red water to the beach. That crimson bothered him as the color intensified near the tideline; how could the normally blue water change color here, in the Mundane quadrant? What magic could affect it here, where no magic existed?
“Maybe some color leaked from the rainbow,” Irene said, following his thought.
Well, maybe. Of course there was the centaur aisle of magic now, so that wherever they were was no longer
