In the morning, after some problems with food and natural functions in this semipublic locale, they set it up. The centaur dug out his collection of spells, each one sealed in a glassy little globe, and Dor stepped outside the aisle of magic while the spells were invoked. First the party became inaudible, then invisible; it looked as if the spot were empty. Dor gave them time to get through the unfeeling spell, then walked back onto the lot. He heard, saw, and felt nothing.
“But I can smell you,” he remarked. “Amolde has a slight equine odor, and Smash smells like a monster, and Irene is wearing perfume. Better clean yourselves up before we get into a building.”
Soon the smells faded, and after a moment Irene appeared, a short distance away. “Can you see me now?”
“I see you and hear you,” Dor said.
“Oh, good. I didn’t know how far out the magic went. I’m still the same to me.” She stepped toward him and vanished.
“You’ve gone again,” Dor said, hastening to the spot where she had been. “Can you perceive me?”
“Hey, you’re overlapping me!” she protested, appearing right up against him, so that he almost stumbled.
“Well, I can’t perceive you,” he said. “I mean, now I can, but I couldn’t before. Can you see the others when you’re outside the aisle?”
She looked. “They’re gone! We can see and hear you all the time, but now-“
“So, you’ll know when I can see you by when you can’t see them.”
She leaned forward, and her face disappeared, reminding him of the Gorgon. Then she drew back. “I could see them then. I’m really in the enchantment, aren’t I?”
“You’re enchanting,” he agreed.
She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him-but her face disappeared and he felt nothing.
“Now I have to go find a library and a good archivist,” he said, disgruntled, as she reappeared. “If you’re with me, stay away from me.”
She laughed. “I’m with you. Just don’t try to catch me outside the aisle.” And of course that was what he should have done, if he really wanted to kiss her. And he did want to-but he didn’t want to admit it.
She walked well to the side of him, staying clear of the enchantment. “No sense you getting lost.”
They walked on into the city. There were many cars in the streets, all zooming rapidly to the intersections, where they screeched to stops, waited a minute with irate growls and constant ejections of smoke from their posteriors, then zoomed in packs to the next intersections. They seemed to have only two speeds: zoom and stop.
There were people inside the cars, exactly the way Grundy had described with the demon vehicles, but they never got out. It was as if the people had been swallowed whole and were now being digested.
Because the cars were as large as centaurs and moved at a constant gallop when not stopped, Dor was wary of them and tried to avoid them. But it was impossible; he had to cross the road sometime. He remembered how the nefarious Gap Dragon of Xanth lurked for those foolish enough to cross the bottom of the Gap; these cars seemed all too similar. Maybe there were some that had not yet consumed people and were traveling hungry, waiting to catch someone like Dor. He saw one car stopped by the side of the street with its mouth wide open like that of a dragon; he avoided it nervously.
The strangest thing about it was that its guts seemed to be all in that huge mouth-steaming tubes and tendons and a disk-shaped tongue.
Oddest of all, it had no teeth. Maybe that was why it took so long to digest the people.
He walked to a corner. “How do I get across?” he asked.
“You wait for a light to stop the traffic,” the street informed him with a contemptuous air of dust and car fumes. “Then you run-don’t walk across before they clip you, If you’re lucky. Where have you been all your life?”
“In another realm,” Dor said. He saw one of the lights the street described. It hung above the intersection and wore several little visors pointing each way. All sorts of colors flashed malevolently from it, in all sorts of directions. Dor couldn’t understand how it made the car stop. Maybe the lights had some kind of stun-spell, or whatever it was called here. He played it safe by asking the light to tell him when it was proper to cross.
“Now,” the light said, flashing green from one face and red from another.
Dor started across. A car honked like a sea monster and squealed like a sea-monster victim, almost running over Dor’s leading foot.
“Not that way, idiot!” the light exclaimed, flashing an angry red. “The other way! With the green, not the red! Haven’t you ever crossed a street before?”
“Never,” Dor admitted. Irene had disappeared; she must have reentered the magic aisle to consult with the others. Maybe she found it safer within the spell zone; apparently the cars were unable to threaten her there.
“Wait till I tell you, then cross the way I tell you,” the light said, blinking erratically. “I don’t want any blood in my intersection!”
Dor waited humbly. “Now,” the light said. “Walk straight ahead, keeping an even pace. Fast. You don’t have all day, only fifteen seconds.”
“But there’s a car charging me!” Dor protested.
“It will stop,” the light assured him. “I shall change to red at the last possible moment and force it to scorch rubber. I get a deep pleasure from that sort of thing.”
Nervously, Dor stepped out onto the street again. The car zoomed terrifyingly close, then squealed to a stop a handspan’s distance from Dor’s shaking body. “Shook you up that time, you damned pedestrian,” the car gloated through its cloud of scorched rubber. “If it hadn’t been for that blinking light, I’d a had you. You creeps shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”
“But how can I cross the street if I’m not allowed on the road?” Dor asked.
“That’s your problem,” the car huffed.
“See, I can time them perfectly,” the light said with satisfaction. “I get hundreds of them each day. No one gets through my intersection without paying his tax in gas and rubber.”
“Go blow a bulb!” the car growled at the light.
“Go soak your horn!” the light flashed back.
“Some day we cars will have a revolution and establish a new axle,” the car said darkly. “We’ll smash all you restrictive lights and have a genuine free-enterprise system.”
“You really crack me up,” the light said disdainfully. “Without me, you’d have no discipline at all.”
Dor walked on. Another car zoomed up, and Dor lost his nerve and leaped out of the way. “Missed him!” the car complained. “I haven’t scored in a week!”
“Get out of my intersection!” the light screamed. “You never stopped! You never burned rubber! You’re supposed to waste gas for the full pause before you go through! How do you expect me to maintain a decent level of pollution here if you don’t cooperate?”
“Oh, go jam your circuits!” the car roared, moving on through.
“Police! Police!” the light flashed. “That criminal car just ran the light! Rogue car! Rogue car!”
But now the other cars, perceiving that one was getting away with open defiance, hastened to do likewise. The intersection filled with snarling vehicles that crashed merrily into each other. There was the crackle of beginning fire.
Then the magic aisle moved out of the light’s range, and it was silent.
Dor was relieved; he didn’t want to attract attention.
Irene reappeared. “You almost did it that time, Dor! Why don’t you quit fooling with lights and get on to the library?”
“I’m trying to!” Dor snapped. “Where is the library?” he asked the sidewalk.
“You don’t need a library, you clumsy oaf,” the walk said. “You need a bodyguard.”