Irene was catching on to her power over the centaur, and over males in general. “Please, Amolde,” she pleaded sweetly. “It’s so important to me to know anything that might help find my lost father-“
“Of course, dear child,” Amolde agreed quickly, adopting an avuncular pose. “It is simply this: perhaps King Trent did not pass this region when we suppose he did.”
“It had to be within this past month,” she said.
“Not necessarily. That is the extraordinary aspect of this supposition. He may have passed here a century ago.”
Now Dor, Irene, and Grundy peered at the centaur intently to see whether he was joking. Smash, less interested in intellectual conjectures, idly formed sandstone by squeezing handfuls of sand until the mineral fused. His new gauntlets evidently enabled him to apply his power in ways that were beyond his natural limits before, since even ogre’s flesh was marginally softer than stone. A modest sandstone castle was developing.
“You happen to sleep with your head underwater last night?” the golem inquired solicitously.
“I have, as I have clarified previously, engaged in a modicum of research into the phenomena of Mundania,” Amolde said. “I confess I know only the merest fraction of what may be available, and must be constantly alert for error, but certain conclusions are becoming more credible. Through history, certain anomalies have manifested in the relationship between continuums. There is of course the matter of linguistics-it appears that there exist multiple languages in Mundania, yet all become intelligible in Xanth. I wonder if you properly appreciate the significance of-“
Irene was growing impatient. She tapped her small foot on the ground.
“How could he have passed a century ago, when he wasn’t even born then?”
“It is this matter of discontinuity, as I was saying. Time seems to differ; there may be no constant ratio. There is evidence that the several Waves of human colonization of Xanth originated from widely divergent subcultures within Mundania, and, in fact, some may be anachronistic. That is to say, the last Wave of people may have originated from a period in Mundania preceding that of the prior Wave.”
“Now wait!” Dor exclaimed. “I visited Xanth of eight hundred years ago, and I guess that was a kind of time travel, but that was a special case. Since there’s no magic in Mundania, how could people get reversed like that? Are their times mixed up?”
“No, I believe their framework is consistent in their world. Yet If the temporal sequence were reversed with respect to ours-“
“I just want to know where my father is!” Irene snapped.
“He may be in Mundania’s past-or its future,” the centaur said. “We simply do not know what law governs transfer across the barrier of magic, but it seems to be governed from Xanth’s side. That is, we may be able to determine into what age of Mundania we travel, whereas the access of Mundania to Xanth is random and perhaps in some cases impossible. It is a most intriguing interface. It is as if Xanth were a boat sailing along a river; the passengers may disembark anywhere they choose, merely by picking their port, or a specific time on the triptych, so to speak, but the natives along the shores can take only that craft that happens to pass within their range. This is an inadequate analogy, I realize, that does not properly account for certain-“
“The King can be anywhen in Mundania?” Irene demanded skeptically.
“Marvelously succinct summation,” Amolde admitted.
“But he told me ‘medieval,’” Dor protested.
“That does narrow it,” the centaur agreed. “But it covers an extraordinary range, and if he was speaking figuratively-?”
“Then how can we ever find him?” Irene demanded.
“That becomes problematical. I hasten to remind you that this is merely a theory, undocumented, perhaps fallacious. I would not have introduced it for consideration, except-“
“Except nothing else fits,” Irene said. “Suppose it’s right. What do we do now?”
“Well, I believe it would expedite things if we located research facilities in Mundania. Some institution where detailed records exist, archives-“
“And you’re an archivist!” Dor exclaimed.
“Precisely. This should enable me to determine at what period in Mundania’s history we have intruded. Since, as King Dor says, King Trent referred to a medieval period, that would provide a frame of reference.”
“If we’re in the wrong Mundane century,” Irene said, “how do we get to him?”
“We should be required to return to Xanth and undertake a new mission to that century. As I mentioned, it seems feasible to determine the temporal locale from Xanth, and once in that aspect of Mundania, we would be fixed in it until returning to Xanth. However, this procedure is fraught with uncertainties and potential complications.”
“I should think so,” Dor said. “If we figured it wrong, we might get there before he did.”
“Oh, I doubt that would happen, other than on the macroscopic scale, of course.”
“The what?” Dor asked.
“I believe the times are consistent in particular circumstances. That is to say, within a given age, we could enter Mundania only with an elapsed period consonant with that of Xanth. Therefore-“
“We might miss by a century, but not by a day,” Grundy said.
“That is the essence, golem. The particular channels appear to be fixed-“
“So let’s go find the century!” Irene said, brightening. “Then all we’d need is the place.”
“With appropriate research, the specific geography should also be evident.”
“Then let’s go find your archives,” she said.
“Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of this period,” Amolde reminded her. “We are hardly likely to locate a suitable facility randomly.”
“I can help there,” Dor said. “It should be where there are a lot of people, right?”
“Correct, King Dor.”
“Uh, better not call me King here. I’m not, really, and people might find it strange.” Then Dor addressed the sand. “Which way to where most people live?”
“How should I know?” the sand asked.
“You know which direction most of them come from, and where they return.”
“Oh, that. They mostly go north.”
“North it is,” Dor agreed.
They marched north, and in due course encountered a Mundane path that debouched into a road that became a paved highway. No such highway existed in Xanth, and Dor had to question this one closely to ascertain its nature. It seemed it served to facilitate the travel of metal and rubber vehicles that propelled themselves with some sort of magic or whatever it was that Mundanes used to accomplish such wonders. These wagons were called “cars,” and they moved very rapidly.
“I saw something like that below ground,” Grundy said. “The demons rode in them.”
Soon the party saw a car. The thing zoomed along like a racing dragon, belching faint smoke from its posterior. They stared after it, amazed. “Fire it send from wrong end,” Smash said.
“Are you sure there’s no magic in Mundania?” Grundy asked. “Even the demons didn’t have firebreathers.”
“I am not at all certain,” Amolde admitted. “Perhaps they merely have a different name and application for their magic. I doubt it would operate for us. Perhaps this is the reason we believe there is no magic in Mundania-it is not applicable to our needs.”
“I don’t want any part of that car,” Irene said. “Any dragon shooting out smoke from its rear is either crazy or has one awful case of indigestion! How could it fight? Let’s find our archives and get out of here.”
The others agreed. This aspect of Mundania was certainly inverted. They avoided the highway, making their way along assorted paths that paralleled it. Dor continued to query the ground, and by nightfall they were approaching a city. It was a strange sort of settlement, with roads that crisscrossed to form large squares, and buildings all lined up with their fronts right on the edges of the roads, so that there was hardly room for any forest there, jammed in close together. Some were so tall it was a wonder they didn’t fall over when the wind blew.