Land of Unreason by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt Page A

the path and ask as you go," they had
said. "The wand will help you."
     
                What path? There were a
dozen or a million winding away through the trees to a region of hedges, where
the tracks were marked only by a brighter green in the short lawn grass. All
curved, rapidly or imperceptibly, and the only comfort was that none of them
led to blind alleys. Whenever the hedges seemed about to close him in, there
was always a sudden turn, another rank of giant flowers and a new vista. But
none of these vistas led to any sign of habitation; down none of them was there
visible any life other than botanical. Ask whom as you go?
     
                Yet at this point it looked
as though he would have to ask somebody soon. The path, narrowed to an alley by
parallel hedges, flowed into an opening filled with a round bed of the huge
flowers. Beyond hedges closed in again, smoothly green, joining the flower bed
at its back, so that he must definitely choose between turning right or left.
The grass gave no clue; both directions showed the high color that had hitherto
been his guide. Everything was still as the moon itself, flooding the scene
with cold light, not a sound, not a motion, not a sign of breeze.
"Hey!" said Fred Barber.
     
                No answer. Not an echo
either; the foliage seemed to muffle his shout.
     
                The indifference of this
landscape had become nerve-racking. He addressed a zinnia the size of a cabbage
on a stalk towering over his head: "I wish you could tell me which way to
the Kobold Hills," he said aloud.
     
                The blossoms showed no
intention of doing so. Damn this whole business! Unfair. His mind abruptly
vaulted back to the incident at college when somebody had blown sneeze powder
through the old-fashioned hot-air inlet into the room where the faculty dinner
was being held. Very funny, but not for Fred Barber, who was student president,
and knew that the priceless young fool who did it would get the whole college
confined to campus in Junior Week if he didn't own up. He swung the ivory wand
up and pointed accusingly at the zinnia:
     
                "Confound it, can't you
see you're just making it tough for all of us without helping yourself? Which
of these paths goes to the Kobold Hills?"
     
                The zinnia courteously bowed
its head toward the path on the right. Barber gazed at the other flowers in the
bed; there was still no wind, not a leaf had rustled, not another flower-head
changed. He pointed the stick at a bachelor-button the size of a ten-gallon
hat: "Do you agree?" he demanded.
     

                The huge flower returned his
stare, immobile and impassive. Experimental proof was wanting; and though he
turned down the right-hand curve (since there was nothing better to do) the
dismaying thought occurred to him that it might always be wanting from the set
of circumstances or form of life in which he inexplicably found himself. What
was it Oberon had said about shapings? "The very rules of life change—"
But if they changed, then there were no rules; life was chaotic. No, wait, life
here didn't abandon rules, it shifted unreasonably from one set to another ...
     
                His shoulder blades itched
in unscratchable places. He stopped and reached around with the crook of the
walking stick-wand, and could plainly feel the bumps that Angus had informed
him were incipient wings. Fred Barber with wings. He tried to picture to
himself the commotion at the Embassy if he walked in on them with a pair of
great feathered appendages springing from his shoulders. He could imagine old
Layton babbling at the sight, with his smug face of a satisfied sheep. And
would an authentic winged man have precedence at dinner over a Yugoslav
military attache? If he knew his embassies, the question ought to be good for
at least eight hours of argument.
     
                Well, he was