“Why, have you got a terminal disease?”
“No. Can she cure them?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I just figured you wanted to commit suicide.”
“Answer the question,” said Sir William. “Can you direct us there?”
“Sure I can.”
“Thank you.”
“If you buy the leg.”
“You little weasel!”
“Come on, I'm making you a great deal here. I'm actually losing money on this sale!”
“I'm not buying that useless leg, and that's final.”
“Uh, sire?” said Randall. “If that's the only way he'll direct us to Grysh's lair, I think you should buy it.”
“But it's the principle of the whole matter!” declared Sir William. “I refuse to pay my hard-earned money for shoddy merchandise! If I buy this leg now, where will it end?”
“Right at your waist,” said Lawrence. “Ha-ha, just a little traveling salesman humor there.”
“I'm going to slay him,” said Sir William. “Don't try and stop me.”
“I won't.”
“All right, all right,” said Lawrence. “How about this. I'll sell you the leg for a dvorkin. One lousy dvorkin. You can't even get a glass of water without dead bugs in it for a dvorkin, and here I am offering to sell you this wonderful leg for one.”
“Fine!” snapped Sir William, digging in his pocket until he found one of the tiny coins. “Here!”
Lawrence took the dvorkin. “Not a very shiny one, is it?”
“Shut up! Gimme the leg!” Sir William snatched the leg out of his hand, then heaved it as far away as he could. “Now where does the witch live?”
“That's not fair,” protested Lawrence. “How are customers supposed to see how superb the Smith Model KL7-RA Prosthetic Locomotion Assistance Device is if you just threw it away?”
“I'll spread the word,” Sir William told him.
“But verbal advertising is much less effective than visual.”
Sir William stepped forward, arms reaching toward Lawrence's neck. The salesman quickly took the hint. “Okay, let me see your map.” He took the parchment then began making various notations on it. “Whoever did this had no clue how the forest is organized. You're lucky you found me.” He gave the map back to Sir William. “There you go.”
Sir William looked the map over. “Yes, this is much clearer now. Thank you.”
“Could I come with you gentlemen?” Lawrence asked. “Now that I've finally sold that leg, my purpose in life is sort of missing.”
“No,” said Sir William.
“Please?”
“No.”
“You'll need me!” Lawrence insisted. “I can help you! I'm a valuable asset!”
“Tough shinola,” said Sir William. “Go away.”
Lawrence gave them a sorrowful look, then walked off, muttering something about how people who purchased legs from salesmen and then refused to let them tag along were jerks.
“Let's go,” Sir William told Randall.
* * * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES later, they were completely lost again.
Chapter 5
Some Stuff Happens
“NO, THE LEG would not have come in handy,” Sir William snarled. “He said nothing about a compass being attached to it. Now be quiet and let me think.”
Randall was quiet. Sir William began to think.
“You're not being quiet enough,” Sir William said.
“I didn't say a word!”
“I don't care. Shut up.”
Sir William began to think some more. Then he got an idea.
“I've got an idea!” he announced.
“What?”
“That was the idea. That I've got an idea.”
“You're getting stupid, sire.”
“I know. It's all this stress! I feel like I'm about to go crazy and start biting the ground! I can't take this any more!”
“Shhh ... now just calm down,” said Randall in a soothing voice. “Imagine you're lying on the beach, next to the ocean.”
“Oceans have sharks,” said Sir William.
“It's an ocean so thoroughly polluted that all the sharks are dead,” Randall amended. “It's just you, relaxing. Close your eyes and picture yourself on that beach.”
Sir William closed his eyes. “Okay, I'm on the beach.”
“Relaxing...”
“Being engulfed by jellyfish.” Sir William's eyes flew open. “This isn't working.”
“Okay, forget the imagination technique. How lost can we be?” He glanced around, then noticed a placard nailed to a tree. Welcome! it said, You're in the bad part of the forest! “Is that on the map?” he asked.
Sir William checked. “No. These people need a good lesson in map-making. Followed immediately by a good kick in the—”
“Hold it!” said Randall, cutting Sir William off and leaving the exact location of the intended kick a mystery never to be solved. “I just realized something. This forest is moving! Look at that!”
Randall pointed to a section of ground, about five feet square, that was shifting. Merging, perhaps, is a better word. The word blurmpling is descriptive of the sight, though non-existent, and the word banana is wholly inappropriate. The clearest description of the sight to greet Randall's eyes is to say that one section of the forest was melting into the other.
“Trippy,” said Sir William.
“Maybe if we just stand here, the graveyard will come to us.”
They just stood there. After a few moments, they reached the mutual consensus that it was a dumb idea. After a few more moments, they decided that it was a dumb enough idea to quit doing it.
“Squire, I have a very, very important question to ask you,” Sir William announced.
“Okay.”
“Where's the bag with the princess?”
“I set it down right ... uh-oh...”
He hurriedly began looking around. The bag was gone without a trace. The section of forest they'd been observing before was no longer blurmpling, and had been replaced by a completely different set of trees. As was the section where he'd left the bag.
“I think this counts as an additional negative twist to our little predicament,” Randall commented.
“Oh no—voices in my head!” moaned Sir William. “I'm hearing voices in my head!”
“You've got to control yourself! If you lose your mind, we're dead!”
“Too late!” shrieked Sir William. “I've gone looney! Find me a bucket to drool in! No, Mommy, no! Don't put the ice in my shorts!”
And then he fainted.
Randall quickly knelt down beside him. “Sir William? Consciousness would be a real good idea right about now!”
He began to shake him. When that was unsuccessful, he began to lightly slap him on the face. As enjoyable as that was, it became clear that it wasn't going to work, and so he prepared to jump up and down on his chest. Sir William's eyes opened just as he was about to make the first leap.
“I'm fine,” Sir William assured him. “Just needed a bit of rest, that's all.”
“Our situation isn't as bad as it seems,” said Randall. “So we've killed the princess and lost her body. It could be worse. Not much worse, I'll admit, but it could still be worse. I mean, suppose there were a huge, bloodthirsty dragon behind us.”
Sir William looked at him closely. “Squire, if there really is a dragon behind us and you're just making that comment to be ironic, I am going to be very upset.”
“No dragon. That was just an example of how our situation could be worse.”
“Good.”
“All we need to do is figure out the pattern of shifting forest. One of us should climb to the top of a tree and see what we can figure out.”