“And mine,” Ichabod agreed. “I must confess my contemporaneous existence was becoming tiresome, though I did not recognize this until this day.” Now the scholar sounded just like Amolde.
Perhaps some obscure wrinkle of fate had operated to bring these two together. Did luck or fate really operate in Mundania? Perhaps they did, when the magic aisle was present. “The prospect of researching in a completely new and mystical terrain is immensely appealing; it renovates my outlook.” He paused. “Ah, would there by any chance be individuals of the female persuasion remotely resembling . . . ?” His glance ticked guiltily to Irene’s legs.
“Nymphs galore,” Grundy said. “A dime a dozen.”
“Oh, you employ contemporaneous currency?” the scholar asked, surprised.
“Currency?” Dor asked blankly.
“A dime is a coin of small denomination here.”
Dor smiled. “No, a dime is a tiny object that causes things passing over it to come to a sudden stop. When it has functioned this way twelve times, its enchantment wears out. Hence our saying-“
“How marvelous. I wonder whether one of my own dimes would perform similarly there.”
“That’s the idea,” Grundy said. “Toss it in front of a troupe of gamboling nymphs, and grab the first one it stops. Nymphs don’t have much brains, but they sure have legs.” He moved farther away from Irene, who showed signs of kicking.
“Oh, I can hardly wait to commence research in Xanth!” the scholar exclaimed. “As it happens, I have a dime ready.” He brought out a tiny silver coin, his gaze once again touching on Irene’s limbs.
“I wonder.”
Irene frowned. “Sometimes I wonder just how badly I really want to rescue my folks. I’ll be lucky if my legs don’t get blistered from all the attention.” But as usual, she did not seem completely displeased. “Let’s be on our way; I don’t care what, you do, once my father is back in Xanth.”
Amolde and Ichabod shook hands, two very similar creatures. On impulse, Dor brought out one of the gold coins he had so carefully saved from the pirate’s treasure. “Please accept this, sir, as a token of our appreciation for your help.” He pressed it on the scholar.
The man hefted the coin. “That’s solid gold!” he exclaimed. “I believe it is a genuine Spanish doubloon! I cannot accept it.”
The centaur interceded. “Please do accept it, Ichabod. Dor is temporary King of Xanth; to decline would be construed as an offense to the crown.”
“But the value-?
“Let’s trade coins,” Dor said, discovering a way through. “Your dime for my doubloon. Then it is an even exchange.”
“An even exchange!” the scholar exclaimed. “In no way can this be considered-“
“Dimes are very precious in Xanth,” Amolde said. “Gold has little special value. Please acquiesce.”
“Maybe a nymph would stop on a doubloon, too,” Grundy suggested.
“She certainly would!” Ichabod agreed. “But not because of any magic. Women here are much attracted to wealth.”
“Please,” Irene put in, smiling beguilingly. Dor knew she only wanted to get moving on the search for her father, but her intercession was effective.
“In that case, I will exchange with you, with pleasure, King Dor,” the scholar agreed, giving Dor his dime. “I only meant to protest that your coin was far too valuable for whatever service I might have provided, when in fact it was a pleasure providing it anyway.”
“Nothing’s too valuable to get my father back,” Irene said. She leaned forward and kissed Ichabod on the cheek. The man froze as if he had glimpsed the Gorgon, an astonished smile on his face. It was obvious he had not been kissed by many pretty girls in his secluded lifetime.
It was now early evening. Ichabod delved into assorted cubbies and produced shrouds to conceal the bodies of the centaur and ogre.
Then Amolde and Smash walked out of the library in tandem, looking like two big workmen in togas, moving a covered crate between them. It turned out to be almost as good concealment as the in visibility spell; no one paid attention to them. They were on their way back to Xanth.
They did not go all the way back home. They trekked only to the northwest tip of Xanth, where the isthmus connected it to Mundania.
Once they were back in magic territory, Irene set about replenishing her stock of seeds. Smash knocked down a jellybarrel tree, consumed the jelly, and fashioned the swollen trunk into a passable boat. Arnolde watched the terrain, making periodic forays into Mundania, in just far enough to see whether it had changed. Dor accompanied him, questioning the sand. By the description of people the sand had recently seen, they were able to guess at the general place and time in Mundania.
For the change was continuous. Once a person from Xanth entered Mundania, his framework was fixed until he returned; but anyone who followed him might enter a different aspect of Mundania.
This was like missing one boat and boarding the next, Amolde explained; the person on the first boat could return, but the person on land could not catch a particular boat that had already departed.
“Thus King Trent had gone, they believed, to a place called “Europe,” in a time called “Medieval.” Dor’s party had gone to a place called “America,” in a time called “Modern.” The shifting of places and times seemed random; probably there was a pattern to the changes that they were unable to comprehend. They simply had to locate the combination they wanted and pass through that “window” before it changed. Amolde concluded, from their observations, that any given window lasted from five minutes to an hour, and that it was possible to hold a window open longer by having a person stand at the border; it seemed the window couldn’t quite close while it was in use. Perhaps it was like the revolving door in the Mundanian library, whose turning could be temporarily stopped by a person in it until some other person needed to use it.
On the third day it became tedious. Irene’s seed collection was complete and she was restive; Smash had finished his boat and stocked it with supplies. Grundy had made himself a nest in the bow, from which he eavesdropped on the gossip of passing marine life. Arnolde and Dor walked down the beach. “What have you seen lately?” Dor inquired routinely of the same-yet-different patch of sand.
“A man in a spacesuit,” the sand replied. “He had little antennae sprouting from his head, like an ant, and he could talk to his friends without making a sound.”
That didn’t sound like anyone Dor was looking for. Some evil Magician must have enchanted the man, perhaps trying to create a new composite-species. They turned about and returned to Xanth. This surely was not their window.
The sea changed color frequently. It had been reddish the last time they came here, and reddish when they returned, for they had been locked into that particular aspect of Mundania. But thereafter it had shifted to blue, yellow, green, and white. Now it was orange, changing to purple. When it was solid purple, they walked west again. “What have you seen lately?” Dor asked once more.
“A cavegirl swimming,” the sand said. “She was sort of fat, but oooh, didn’t she have-“
They walked east again, depressed. “I wish there were a more direct way to do this,” Amolde said. “I have been striving to analyze the pattern, but it has eluded me, perhaps because of insufficient data.”
“I know it’s not much of a life we have brought you into,” Dor said. “I wish there had been some other way-“
“On the contrary, it is a fascinating and a challenging puzzle,” the centaur demurred. “It is akin to the riddles of archaeology, where one must have patience and fortune in equal measure. We merely must gather more data, whether it takes a day or a year.”
“A year!” Dor cried, horrified.
“Surely it will be shorter,” Amolde said reassuringly. It was obvious that he had a far greater store of patience than Dor did.
As they re-entered Xanth, the sea turned black. “Black!” Dor exclaimed. “Could that be-?”
“It is possible,” Amolde agreed, tempering his own excitement with the caution of experience. “We had better alert the remainder of our company.”
“Grundy, get Smash and Irene to the boat,” Dor called. “We just might be close.”
“More likely another false alarm,” the golem grumbled. But he scampered off to fetch the other two.
