avenue?
What about the opposite? Making her cry? That seemed cruel, but maybe it wasn't, since she was a weeper by nature. Maybe her true satisfaction lay in weeping.
Cube braced herself and tried. “I have to agree. Your fate is very sad. It must be terrible to be locked into this abysmal gate with no hope of release.”
“Yes, it is very bad,” the tree agreed, the tears flowing more copiously.
“Just on and on, crying endlessly, without hope.”
“Yes,” the tree sobbed. The tears were rushing down, forming a small river at the base that made its way to the moat.
“Nobody ever had a worse fate.”
“Nobody,” the willow agreed, streaming.
“I don't see how you can stand it.”
“I can't stand it!” The water came from her eyes in virtual cataracts, splashing onto the floor in twin waterfalls.
Cataracts. That was an eye condition. Could that be the key?
Cube acted before she could change her mind. She dived into the nearest cataract, desperately swimming upstream. In a moment she found herself being carried along, topsy-turvy, tumbling in the fierce current. She was in a rushing river--and the portcullis was gone.
She had found a way through. Where she was going she didn't know, but she was past the second Challenge.
The river slowed. She looked around, and saw that it was flowing into a larger channel with steep cliffs on the sides. She couldn't get out. There was just one place where the ground was low enough for her to wade out. There was a green tree by it, blocking the way. Well, she would climb through its foliage if she had to.
She splashed up to the bank. Then she recognized the variety of tree. It was a tangle tree.
She stayed in the water, realizing that she had come up against the third Challenge. She had gotten by the weeping willow; now she had to get by a more tough-minded tree. She couldn't swim throughits eye!
While she was hesitating, a green girl walked around the tree. “Get away!” Cube screamed. “That's a tangle tree!”
The girl looked at her, surprised. “You're telling me?”
“Yes! Get away before it grabs you with its tentacles!”
The girl laughed. “Why should it do that?” She caught hold of a trailing tentacle and wrapped it around her body like a scarf.
Cube stared. The tree was not attacking. In fact it was quiescent. Maybe it had just eaten, so was sated, and the girl knew it. In that case, Cube could simply walk by it. Maybe the Challenge was to figure that out, and get up the nerve to do it.
She waded forward.
“I wouldn't,” the girl remarked pleasantly.
“But if it's harmless now, I shouldn't wait. It could be hungry again in an hour.”
“It's hungry now.”
“But--” Then Cube saw the tips of the tentacles quivering. They were orienting on her, waiting for her to come within reach so they could fling out and snare her. That was how tangle trees operated: they remained still until something came within reach, then they nabbed it and hauled it into the trunk-mouth for chomping.
Yet the girl still wore the tentacle, and it wasn't squeezing her at all. She was twice as delectable as Cube, with much nicer mounds of flesh and no awkward clothing. In fact she was a succulent nymph.
A nymph--or a dryad? Could it be?
“I didn't know tangle trees had dryads,” Cube said in wonder.
“Now you do,” the dryad said.
“But what do you do for the tree? It eats human flesh.”
“Come within reach and I'll show you,” the dryad said.
Cube knew better. “I'll wait, thanks.”
“If you were a man, you wouldn't wait.”
“Why not?”
The nymph did a little dance. Her full bare breasts and buttocks bounced, her silken green hair flung about, and she kicked one