The Deceiver’s head popped out of the shaft and looked around. He dropped onto the shifting floor and landed on his knees, giggling. “By the unanswerable questions! False matter!” He looked around, delight in his eyes. “I saw a nugget of it once, preserved inside an enchanted pearl in the palace of the mer-king. I had no idea that such a large volume of the stuff still existed!”
The monkeys had been carried by the shifting floor until one now stood perpendicular to Zetetic, while another was surfing a wave of stone fifty feet away. The monkey near Zetetic looked slightly green as it said, “What the hell is wrong with this place?” He rode the chaotic stone higher, until he was looking straight down on the Deceiver. “Shouldn’t one of us be falling?”
The Deceiver shook his head. “Ignore your eyes. Think of down as whatever direction you point the soles of your feet.” Zetetic rose on trembling legs, holding his hands out to steady himself. His eyes were closed. A few seconds later, he cautiously opened his eyes. He grinned as the monkey was carried back and forth on currents of stone. “Imagine you are perfectly stationary. You are the center of your world, and let the room orbit around you. Everything is relative here.”
The monkey responded by vomiting. The clear, frothy broth pooled around his feet. He closed his eyes and moaned, “Make it stop.”
Zetetic shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say to help you. Your body is made of true matter. It still obeys the same physical rules it always has. You can control your physical response with simple willpower.”
Menagerie was still two very sick little monkeys by the time No-Face, Relic, and Father Ver made it down the shaft on a rope ladder. No-Face and Relic were quickly toppled by the changing landscape. Father Ver managed to remain upright as he dropped from the shaft, frowning as he took in the bodies in motion around him. He responded by holding out his arms and turning around slowly. The stone in a ten-foot disk beneath him flattened out and stopped moving.
He crossed his arms and said, in a firm tone, “I’m standing on the floor.”
No-Face, who was directly overhead, suddenly plummeted onto the circle of motionless stone, landing at the Truthspeaker’s feet. The monkey who’d been speaking with Zetetic leapt from his perch on the wall and landed on No-Face’s chest. I had no idea where the second half of Menagerie had gotten to. It was impossible to estimate the size of the chamber. It seemed to stretch out for miles, but the rules of perspective were completely useless. Relic was just a little speck, seemingly a hundred yards away, then he reached out and tapped the edge of his staff onto the circle that Ver had calmed and suddenly he was close enough to touch, crawling onto the island and collapsing next to No-Face.
Zetetic didn’t seem bothered by the sudden emergence of a floor. He continued to ride the shifting stone, as surefooted as a forest-pygmy on a swaying vine. “Fighting it is only going to make you more disoriented.”
“Fighting falsehood is my sworn duty,” said Father Ver. “The truth of what has happened here is plain. The pagans corrupted the true matter of the cavern, infecting it with falseness, which has flourished in isolation. In the beginning, before the Divine Author dipped the sacred quill in the holy ink, matter was devoid of such truths as width and length and breadth. By worshipping false gods, the ancient priests weakened the walls surrounding them. The stone has gone feral.”
“This is going to shock you,” said Zetetic, “but I concur. We’re surrounded by the original stuff of creation, matter unshaped by mind. With practice, we could mold it to anything we can imagine. This is the greatest treasure we’ve yet discovered, far more valuable than gold, and you’re wasting it by turning it into mere rock.”
“Stone must learn to respect the truth that it is stone,” said Father Ver, striding forward, calming more of the undulating rock into smooth gray solidity. Soon, he had an oblong island fifty feet long and a few yards wide frozen into rather mundane looking granite.
Relic pulled himself back to his feet and said, “At least there is no question that we have found the perfect location to attack the dragon’s spirit. In a place like this, we should have little difficulty ripping the veil between the physical and the spiritual worlds.”
Looking around, I realized that everyone was present and accounted for except Tower and Infidel. I flew back up the shaft, homing in on the bone-handled knife. I cut a path through stone and emerged in the hall where I found Tower with his helmet removed, on his knees before Infidel, holding her hand. He was kissing her knuckles.
“My love, before I go below to face the dragon, there is something I must give you.”
“Great!” she said. “I hope it’s chocolate this time.”
Tower brought a gauntlet to his breastplate, directly above his heart, and pressed a small panel there. A tiny door slid open and something glowing fell into his palm.
My eyes bulged as he slipped a dazzling ring studded with diamonds and glorystones onto Infidel’s finger. Infidel’s mouth fell open slightly, but she made no sound.
“I’ve carried this over my heart since the day you vanished. I always knew the moment would come when I would have another chance to give it to you.”
“Um,” said Infidel. “Why now?”
“I’ve won every battle I’ve ever fought, my love. Still, I can’t underestimate the danger that waits below. It may be that I shall perish. But I would die a happy man if I knew this ring was on your finger, testament to all the world of our eternal love, my princess.”
“Ah,” she said. “Hmm. Uh, it doesn’t really go with my disguise, you know? Father Ver might figure everything out if I go below flashing this around.” She slid the ring from her finger.
“You won’t be going below,” said Tower. “The danger is too great. I want you to go back to the surface. I’ll find you after the battle. I couldn’t bear to see a single hair on your head singed by the dragon.”
“It’s a little late for that,” she said, running her fingers through her spiky locks.”
“That fact that you can jest is testimony to your courageous spirit,” said Tower. “Still, I beg you…”
Infidel sighed. “Don’t beg.”
“But my love for you is-”
“You aren’t in love, you idiot,” she said, grabbing his gauntlet and dropping the ring into it. “At least, not with me. You don’t even have a clue who I am.”
“You’re Princess Innocent, daughter of-”
“Stop,” she said. “You know my family tree. You don’t know me.”
“But your lineage is part of who you are,” said Tower. “Your royal breeding proves that you’re a woman of beauty, grace, and wit, matchless in-”
“Please stop talking,” she said. “You think I haven’t heard this crap growing up? Being a princess means you stop being a real person. You’re just an actress following a script written by history. In case you didn’t notice, I tore up that script. I’m not sweet little Innocent anymore.”
“Oh, I know this,” he said, rising, looking down at her with a leer. “You’ve grown into a very, very naughty girl. You may even require a spank-”
“Try it and I will rip your arms off,” she said, smiling sweetly.
He cocked his head, looking confused. “I’m sorry. Since you’re wearing leather pants, I assumed you might enjoy such rough treatment.”
Infidel sighed, powerfully enough to stir the dust in the room. She closed her eyes, rubbing them as she contemplated her next words. Finally, she said, “It’s time to come clean. I’m not going to marry you. I don’t like you. At least, not romantically. It’s possible we could, I dunno, be friends. You seem like a decent guy who would probably make the right woman happy.”