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.
When they reached their usual spot of questioning, Dor noticed that there was a large old broad-leaved tree that hadn’t been there before. This was certainly a different locale. But that in itself did not mean much; the landscape did shift with the Mundane aspects, sometimes dramatically. It was not just time but geography that changed; some aspects were flat and barren, while others were raggedly mountainous. The only thing all had in common was the beach line, with the sea to the south and the terrain to the north. Amolde was constantly intrigued by the assorted significances of this, but Dor did not pay much attention. “What have you seen lately?” he asked the sand.
“Nothing much since the King and his moll walked by,” the sand said.
“Oh.” Dor turned to trek back to the magic section.
The centaur paused. “Did it say-?”
Then it sank in. Excitement raced along Dor’s nerves. “King Trent and Queen Iris?”
“I suppose. They were sort of old.”
“I believe we have our window at last!” Amolde said. “Go back and alert the others; I shall hold the window open.”
Dor ran back east, his heart pounding harder than warranted by the exertion. Did he dare believe? “We’ve found it!” he cried. “Move out now!”
They dived into the boat. Smash poled it violently forward. Then the ogre’s effort diminished. Dor looked, and saw that Smash was striving hard but accomplishing little.
“Oh-we’re out of the magic of Xanth, and not yet in the magic aisle,” he said. “Come on-we’ve all got to help.”