Free Man From Mundania by Piers Anthony Page B

spook.
    But we may be terrified before we get through."
     
    Grey remembered one scene in Xanth, where a party
    had made a harrowing trip along the Lost Path where as-
    sorted punnish things abounded, and Prince Dolph had
    gotten lost in a modem airport: the innocent Xanth idea
    of horror. If this horror-house setting was modeled on
    that, he had little to worry about. "I'll keep that in mind."
     
    There was light ahead. They proceeded toward it, and
    soon the cave opened out into a breathtaking landscape.
     
    It was a mountain, projecting up from gloomy mists
    into the sunlight, its curious outlines showing in starkest
    relief. It was stepped vaguely like a pyramid with crude
    terraces set off by vertical drops, and abrupt cave entries,
    shining crystalline spires, and a flying buttress or two. At
     
    Man from Mundania          57
     
    the very top, perched at what seemed a precarious angle,
    was a turreted palace or castle, so far and high it looked
    tiny. The whole effect was of fairyland beauty and chal-
    lenge.
     
    Beside him. Ivy was silent, gazing as raptly as he at the
    mountain. Then she came to life. "I had hoped it wouldn't
    be this bold, this soon," she murmured.
     
    Grey walked forward to gain a better view of the fas-
    cinating structure. Suddenly he stopped. He had almost
    banged into a glass barrier! Then he looked again. "Why-
    it's a picture!" he exclaimed. "Just a picture of a fancy
    mountain! We can't reach it."
     
    "I don't think that's the case," Ivy said. "This is the
    gourd, remember, where dreams are real. We shall have
    to enter the picture."
     
    "Enter the—?" But he remembered that there had been
    just such a scene in one of the books, so naturally she
    believed it. "Okay, you make the scene, and I'll follow."
     
    "Yes." She stepped forward and through the barrier.
     
    Grey gaped. She was standing on the painted path that
    led down into the painted valley that contained the painted
    mountain. She was inside the picture!
     
    Then he realized that it was an optical illusion. There
    was an entry there, or something. He moved over to where
    she had stood, then forward, cautiously. He put out a hand.
     
    He touched the surface of the picture. He passed his
    fingers along it. The thing was definitely a painting, done
    in slight relief; he could feel the edge of the terraces and
    of each of the steps on the stone stairways circling the
    mountain. No way to walk into that scene!
     
    Yet there was Ivy, part of the picture. She had walked
    down the path a way, perhaps assuming that he was right
    behind her, and perspective made her look smaller. Was
    it really her? He stroked her backside with a finger—and
    she jumped.
     
    While Grey stared, the pictured Ivy whirled around, a
    mixed expression on her little face. She was alive—yet
    painted! He had felt the material of her skirt, the firmness
    of her tiny bottom, yet also the flatness of the painting.
     
     
     
     
    58          Man from Mundania
     
    Ivy was saying something, but he could not hear her,
    of course. How could a figure in a painting speak?
     
    Then she started making signs. Grey, she signed, using
    the signs for white and black, which they had agreed would
    be his name: mix white with black and you got gray.
     
    Her name was Green Plant. He made that sign, an-
    swering her. Suddenly they had a new use for the language
     
    of the deaf.
     
    Come here she signed.
    / can not he signed back, hardly believing this. How
     
    could she be part of a picture, yet still alive and moving?
     
    She walked back toward him, growing rapidly larger as
    the perspective changed. Finally she was his own size,
    standing in the foreground of the picture. Take my hand.
     
    Grey put forth his hand. He set it against the painting,
    beside her, having learned caution about touching her im-
    age directly. She put her hand up to match his.
     
    The texture of the painting changed under his fingers.
    It became warm and yielding, like