X19 Roc and a Hard Place by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 0812534867
Publisher: New York : TOR, 1995.
Published: 2008-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: BOOK OF KINGS.

Kim sagged in the seat. "We didn't make it," she said.

"What now? We can't haul Arnolde through this muck, and he sure can't haul himself. We can't leave him, for two or three solid reasons. And without him …"

Woe Betide was only a child, but she knew what Kim wasn't saying. Without Arnolde's aisle of magic, Ichabod would probably die, and she herself would dissolve into a swirl of wind. Only Kim, Dug, and Jenny non-elf would be able to trudge on to Xanth.

So she asked a childish question. "Could Arnolde maybe slide forward to dry land, if the front of the truck wasn't there?"

"I guess. But what would that gain?"

"Could he maybe be pushed, if we had a sledge to hold him?"

"I suppose so. But we don't."

"Could we push it through that rocky tangle ahead, if we had a channel?"

"What is the point of this. Woe? We can't change the landscape."

"Yes we can."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your magic talent."

Kim laughed, bitterly. "I don't have any magic talent! I'm Mundane, remember?"

"The one you won."

Kim reconsidered. "Oh, you mean the talent of erasure I got for winning the game, three years ago. I can use that only in the game."

"Only in Xanth."

"Same thing!" Then Kim did a double take. "We're going to Xanth! I could use it there!"

"What about in the aisle?"

Kim's jaw dropped. "Why—I never thought to try."

"Try," Woe Betide said.

Kim put her hand against the dashboard and stroked sideways, as if washing it. That section disappeared, as if it were part of a picture that had been erased. The brush of the swamp bank showed through that gap.

Kim touched the hole with her other hand. "It's gone!" she said. "The whole front of the truck is gone!"

Then she made a reverse stroke, with her palm toward her.

That erased the erasure, and the dashboard was restored.

"So erase what's ahead, and push Arnolde through," Woe Betide said.

"Maybe it would work," Kim said, awed. "As long as the magic lasts. Maybe we can make it after all."

"Sure," Woe Betide said eagerly.

"But this has to be sensible. I can erase the truck, and maybe some of the terrain, but there needs to be something to replace it." Kim erased the front of the truck again, this time using broader strokes, then smoothed her hand across the air that was in the hole. A kind of dull blah substance filled in. "Smeared paints from what I just erased," she said.

"Instead of restoring, I smeared it back. That makes a base, I think. Shame to ruin Ichabod's truck, but this is an emergency."

Then she turned around. "This I'd better erase excruciatingly carefully, because I don't want to erase Arnolde too."

She moved her hand slowly across the back of the cab.

In a moment and a half the barrier between the front and the back was gone. Dug peered through the hole, with Sammy and Bubbles at his feet. "What are you girls doing?" he demanded. "First you plunge into a swamp; now—"

"Using my talent," Kim replied.

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