strictly Mundane. Yet the red water extended well beyond the area of temporary enchantment.
It seemed to be a regular feature of the region.
They gathered on the beach, dripping pink water. Grundy and Smash didn’t mind, but Dor felt uncomfortable, and Irene’s blouse and skirt were plastered to her body. “I’m not walking around this way, and I’m not taking off my clothes,” she expostulated. She felt in her seedbag, which she had refilled at Centaur Isle, and brought out a purple seed. It seemed the bag was waterproof, for the seed was dry. “Grow,” she ordered it as she dropped it on the sand.
The thing sprouted into a heliotrope. Clusters of small purple flowers burst open aromatically. Warm dry air wafted outward. This plant did not really travel toward the sun; it emulated the sun’s heat, dehydrating things in the vicinity. Soon their clothing was dry again.
Even Smash and Grundy appreciated this, since both now wore the special jackets given them by the centaurs. Smash also shook out his gauntlets and dried them, and Irene spread her silver-lined fur out nearby.
“Do we know where we go from here?” Irene asked once she had her skirt and blouse properly fluffed out.
“Did King Trent pass this way?” Dor inquired of the landscape.
“When?” the beach-sand asked.
“Within the past month.”
“I don’t think so.”
They moved a short distance north, and Dor tried again. Again the response was negative. As the day wore into afternoon and on into evening, they completed their traverse of the isthmus-without positive result. The land had not seen the King.
“Maybe the Queen still had an illusion of invisibility enchantment,” Grundy suggested. “So nothing could see them.”
“Her illusion wouldn’t work here in Mundania, dummy,” Irene retorted. She was still miffed at the golem because of the way Grundy had caused her to lose half her seeds to the eclectic eel. She carried a little grudge a long time.
“I am not properly conversant with King Trent’s excursion,” Arnolde said. “Perhaps he departed Xanth by another route.”
“But I know he came this way!” Irene said.
“You didn’t even know he was leaving Xanth,” Grundy reminded her. “You thought he was inside Xanth on vacation.”
She shrugged that off as irrelevant. “But this is the only route out of Xanth!” Her voice was starting its hysterical tremor.
“Unless he went by sea,” Dor said.
“Yes, he could have done that,” she agreed quickly. “But he would have come ashore somewhere. My mother gets seasick when she’s in a boat too long. All we have to do is walk along the beach and ask the stones and plants.”
“And watch for Mundane monsters,” Grundy said, still needling her. “So they can’t look up your-“
“I am inclined to doubt that countermagical species will present very much of a problem,” Amolde said in his scholarly manner.
“What he know, he hoofed schmoe?” Smash demanded.
“Evidently more than you, you moronic oaf,” the centaur snapped back. “I have been studying Mundania somewhat, recently, garnering information from immigrants, and by most reports most Mundane plants and animals are comparatively shy. Of course there is a certain margin for error, as in all phenomena.”
“What dray, he say?” Smash asked, perplexed by the centaur’s vocabulary.
“Dray!” Amolde repeated, freshly affronted. “A dray is a low cart, not a creature, you ignorant monster. I should thank you to address me by my proper appellation.”
“What’s the poop from the goop?” Smash asked.
Dor stifled a laugh, fuming it into a choking cough. In this hour of frustration, tempers were fraying, and they could not afford to have things get too negative.
Grundy opened his big mouth, but Dor managed to cover it in time. The golem could only aggravate the situation with his natural penchant for insults.
It was Irene who retained enough poise to alleviate the crisis.
“You just don’t understand a person of education, Smash. He says the Mundane monsters won’t dare bother us while you’re on guard.”
“Oh. So,” the ogre said, mollified.
“Ignorant troglodyte,” the centaur muttered.
That set it off again. “Me know he get the place of Chet!” Smash said angrily, forming his gauntlets into horrendous fists.
So that was the root of the ogre’s ire! He felt Amolde had usurped the position of his younger centaur friend. “No, that’s not so,” Dor started, seeking some way to alleviate his resentment. If their party started fracturing now, before they were fairly clear of Xanth, what would happen once they got deep into Mundania?
“And he called you a caveman, Smash,” Grundy put in helpfully.
“Compliments no good; me head like wood,” the ogre growled, evidently meaning that he refused to be swayed by soft talk.
“Indubitably,” Amolde agreed.
Dor decided to leave it at that; a more perfect understanding between ogre and centaur would only exacerbate things.
They walked along the beach. Sure enough, nothing attacked them. The trees were strange oval-leafed things with brownish inert bark and no tentacles. Small birds flitted among the branches, and gray animals scurried along the ground.
Amolde had brought along a tome of natural history, and he consulted it eagerly as each thing turned up. “An oak tree!” he exclaimed. “Probably the root stock of the silver oak, the blackjack oak, the turkey oak, and the acorn trees!”
“But there’s no silver, blackjacks, or acorns,” Grundy protested.
“Or turkeys,” Irene added.
“Certainly there are, in rudimentary forms,” the centaur said. “Observe a certain silvery aspect to some leaves, and the typical shape of others, primitively suggestive of other, eventual divergencies. And I suspect there are also acorns, in season. The deficiency of magic prevents proper manifestation, but to the trained perception-“
“Maybe so,’ the golem agreed, shrugging. It was evidently more than he cared to know about oak trees.
Dor continued to query the objects along the beach, and the water of the sea, but with negative results. All denied seeing King Trent or Queen Iris.
“This is ridiculous!” Irene expostulated. “I know he came this way!”
Amolde stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There does appear to be a significant discontinuity.”
“Something doesn’t fit,” Grundy agreed.
As the sun set, they made camp high on the beach. Rather than post watches, they decided to trust in magic. Dor told the sand in their vicinity to make an exclamation if anything dangerous or obnoxious intruded, and the sand promised to do so. Irene grew a blanket bush for their beds and set a chokecherry hedge around them for additional protection. They ate beefsteak tomatoes that they butchered and roasted on flame-vines, and drank the product of wine and-rain lilies.
“Young lady, your talent contributes enormously to our comfort,” Amolde complimented her, and Irene flushed modestly.
“Aw, he’s just saying that ‘cause she’s pretty,” Grundy grumbled.
That only made Irene flush with greater pleasure. Dor was not pleased, but could not isolate the cause of his reaction. The hangups of others were easier for him to perceive than his own.
“Especially when her skirt hikes up over her knees,” the golem continued. Irene quickly tugged down her hem, her flush becoming less attractive.
“Actually, there are few enough rewards to a mission like this,” Amolde said. “Had I my choice, I would
