Logic to the Rescue

Adventures in Reason

Kris Langman

Post Hoc Publishing

Boston, Massachusetts  USA 

Logic to the Rescue

Copyright © 2008 by Kris Langman

ISBN:  978-0-9820927-0-5  

Post Hoc Publishing

Boston, MA  02116 

Email:  posthocpub@verizon.net

Website:  www.posthocpub.com

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced without permission of the author except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The purpose of Logic to the Rescue is to provide an introduction to logical fallacies.  It supplements this with simple examples from chemistry and physics.  Neither the author nor Post Hoc Publishing assumes any liability with respect to loss or damage alleged to have been caused by the information in this book.

Contents

Chapter One:  A Debater Disappears

Chapter Two: The King Has Spoken - Logical Fallacy:  Appeal to Authority

Chapter Three: Everybody Does It - Logical Fallacy:  Appeal to Popularity

Chapter Four:  Fortune Teller - Logical Fallacy:  Lack of Evidence

Chapter Five:  The Benighted Knight - Logical Fallacy:  Ad Hominem

Chapter Six:   This or That - Logical Fallacy:  False Dilemma

Chapter Seven: Scarecrow - Logical Fallacy:  Straw Man

Chapter Eight: The Wishing Well - Logical Fallacy:  Counting the Hits

Chapter Nine: Before and After- -Logical Fallacy:  Post Hoc

Chapter Ten:   Plot and Counterplot

Chapter One

A Debater Disappears

Nikki wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.  The spotlights shining on the stage of the high school auditorium felt like tiny burning suns.  Under her Westlake Debate Team T-shirt her armpits were sticky with sweat.  She twitched uncomfortably and tried to focus on what her opponent was saying.

“And in conclusion, I propose that the federal government should increase its budget for solar, wind, and bio-fuels research.”

Her opponent was arguing the affirmative position in the debate, which meant that Nikki was stuck with the negative position.  It was the semi-finals of the Wisconsin State High School Debate Championships, and Nikki’s nerves were getting the better of her.

They were debating whether the Federal Government should spend more money on renewable energy.  Nikki had spent the past two weeks stuffing facts and figures into her head.  Solar power was expensive.  That was her main point. 

She cleared her throat and nervously shoved her long dark hair away from her face.  It was her turn.  This was her second rebuttal, which meant that this round of the debate was almost over.  “It is a well-known fact that solar power, a main component of renewable energy, is um, expensive.”  Nikki winced.  Jeez, that was a clunker.  She had to get it together or she wouldn’t make it into the finals.  She paused, fiddling with the note cards on her podium.  Normally she didn’t need to refer to her cards at all during a debate, but today her brain seemed to have purged itself of all facts ever stuffed into it. 

She cleared her throat again, and then she made her fatal mistake.  She looked at the audience.  This was her first time at the state championships.  At local debates the audience generally consisted of her mother and maybe a janitor sweeping the floor.  Here at the state championships the auditorium was filled to capacity.  Hundreds of people looked back at her as she stared out at the crowd.  Her mind went blank.  Nikki could feel the seconds ticking away as she struggled to pull herself together.

“And that’s time,” called the judge. 

The clock had run out.

Nikki felt her face turning red.  She couldn’t believe it.  Her first time at State and she’d bombed.  She gathered up her note cards with shaking hands and darted through the curtains at the back of the stage.

Her debate teacher called after her, but she ignored him and pushed through the stage door.  She found herself in a noisy hallway filled with debate students practicing their arguments.  She dodged through the crowd, looking for the girls bathroom. 

“Hey, Nikki.  Wait up.”

Shoot.  It was Tina, the captain of their team.  The last thing she wanted was a lecture from Tina. 

Nikki ducked behind a group of boys who were folding their note cards into paper airplanes.  At the end of the hallway she spotted a door marked “Utility Closet”. 

She yanked open the door and darted inside, coughing as the smell of ammonia and wet mop hit her nose.  She shut the door and stood in the dark, peering out through the tiny glass window cut into the door at eye-level.  Tina’s frowning face swam into view, then disappeared down the hall. 

Nikki let out a sigh and groped around for something to sit on.  A cardboard box full of what felt like old newspapers was pushed against the wall.  She lowered herself onto it and leaned her head against the wall, the cold cement wonderfully soothing after the hot lights of the auditorium. 

Maybe she should just stay in here for the rest of the day, Nikki thought.  It was better than facing the debate team.  Her screw-up had probably kept the whole team from advancing to the finals.  It was also better than facing her mother.  Her mom was a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin, and she had set high standards for Nikki from the first grade onward.  Nikki had been only six when her mom had first started to teach her how to do scientific experiments.  How to create a hypothesis and support it with data.  How to think logically, research carefully, and defend your point with valid arguments.  She’d been so proud when Nikki had been put in her school’s Advanced Placement chemistry class even though she was only fourteen.  And she’d been even prouder when Nikki had been selected for the high school debate team.

Nikki sighed.  Her mom was going to be so disappointed in her.  She was contemplating spending the night in the closet, when suddenly she jerked upright. 

Voices.  She’d definitely heard voices.  Not from out in the hall, but from inside the closet, somewhere near her feet.  She jerked her feet up onto the box and listened, her heart beating in her ears. 

“You’ve woken her up.  She’s gonna be mad.  She’ll probably stomp on us with her big feet.”

“Shhhh.  Be quiet, Fuzz.  She’s not going to stomp on us.  She’s a very nice young lady.  I can tell.  I’m sure she’s the one we’re looking for.  I’ll address her politely and I’m sure she’ll listen.”

Nikki heard what sounded like a tiny female clearing her throat. 

“Hello, madam.”

A sputtering sound hissed through the darkness.  “Don’t call her madam,” said a tiny male voice.  “She’s obviously a young girl.  If you offend her she’ll stomp on us.”

The tiny female voice cleared again.  “My apologies, Miss.  My companion is better at seeing in the dark than I am.  Just give me a moment.”

Nikki heard a scratching sound and breathed in a sharp whiff of sulfur.  A flame appeared at her feet.  Holding a flickering match was the strangest creature Nikki had ever seen.  It was roughly two feet tall, with straw-colored hair, a very long nose, and pale skin.  It wore a long dress made of grey wool with blue embroidery on the sleeves.  Beside it stood a similar creature, slightly taller than the first, with short brown hair and darker skin.  The second creature wore a linen shirt, an embroidered vest, and brown woolen trousers.  He sported a precisely combed goatee.

The female creature bowed to Nikki.

Nikki pinched herself on the arm.  The pinching didn’t wake her up, so she tried again.  Nope, she was still sitting on a box of newspapers in a janitor’s closet, staring down at two extras from a Disney cartoon.  Maybe it was all the cleaning chemicals she was breathing in.  She was just about to bolt for the door when the male creature spoke.

“Cut out the bowing and just ask her already.  I want to get back to the Realm before more people from this world come in here and stomp on us with their big feet.”

The female creature elbowed him in the ribs.  “Pardon the rudeness of my companion, Miss.  Let me introduce ourselves.  My name is Athena, and this is Fuzz.  We are imps from the Realm of Reason.  We were sent here by the ruler of our land, King Tertullius the True, to seek assistance from the great thinkers of this world.  The king’s all-knowing advisor, Maleficious the Wise, looked into his crystal sphere and saw that a gathering of great minds had congregated at this place of learning.”

“Great minds?  Place of learning?” Nikki asked dazedly.  “You mean the debate at the high school?”

“Yes, Miss.  And we can see by your garment that you are one of the wise.  One of the debaters.”  The imp whispered the last word with great reverence.  “You are just the person to help us.  You must come with us, quickly, before all is lost.”  She took a step toward a dark corner of the closet, gesturing for Nikki to follow her.

Maybe it was the ammonia fumes.  Maybe it was just a strong desire to avoid facing her mother, her debate teacher and the rest of the debate team.  Whatever it was Nikki found herself following the little creature into the darkest corner of the closet. 

The imp held the still-burning match above her head.  Its flickering light shone on the carcass of an old metal boiler, long ago replaced by a modern heating system.  The coal door of the boiler hung open on its hinges.  The two imps hopped into its dark interior.

Nikki watched the tiny flame getting smaller and smaller.  She gave one last look behind her and then climbed through the boiler door.

Chapter Two

The King Has Spoken

Logical Fallacy:  Appeal to Authority

Nikki squinted, her eyes stung by bright sunlight.  She had emerged from the boiler onto a cobblestone street crowded with people.  The street was lined with stalls piled high with cabbages, corn, lettuce, and apples.  People rushed to and fro, their arms weighed down with straw baskets filled with their daily shopping.

The first thing Nikki noticed about the Realm of Reason was that it reminded her of medieval England.  The buildings had thatched roofs, there was an old stone church across the way, and a farmer was herding goats down the main street.  The second thing she noticed was that most of the inhabitants were people of normal size like herself.  Only rarely did she spot another creature as tiny as the imps.  

The third thing she noticed was the socks.  All the men wore long woolen knee-socks underneath short woolen tunics.  The women wore thick socks peeking out from under ankle-length dresses.  All their socks were in bright colors of sunflower yellow, deep violet, royal blue and acid green.  And not one pair of them matched.

The imps beckoned to her.  Nikki took one last look behind her at the dark mouth of the boiler which led back to her own world.  She shook her head, took a deep breath, and followed the small figures of the imps.

The market roiled with shoppers, farm animals, and stall owners loudly hawking their wares.  Nikki dodged through the crowd, jumping aside as a herd of pigs squealed past her.  She nearly lost sight of the imps as a throng of shoppers engulfed her and steered her toward a stall selling live geese.  The geese squawked loudly, as if they knew exactly what would happen to them at dinnertime.  Nikki yelped as a frantic goose pecked at her.  She rubbed the red spot on her arm and peered around for the imps, who had trotted ahead, ignoring both the townspeople and the geese.

She caught up to them at the last market stall, where the town’s cobblestone road turned into a rutted dirt track.  The noise and crowds of the market disappeared.  The buildings of the town gave way to pleasant green fields dotted with dandelions and grazing sheep.

Nikki was about to ask the imps where they were going, when a sound like thunder rushed up from behind them.  Nikki jumped aside as a group of knights on horseback roared past them, kicking up clouds of dust.  The male imp gave a hacking cough and spit out the dust, shaking his tiny fist at the knights.

Nikki wiped the dust from her eyes and looked up.  The dirt track they were following wound up a grassy hill sprinkled with orange poppies and delicate bluebells.  At the top of the hill towered a white marble castle, its walls gleaming in the sun, purple flags flying from its many turrets.  Soldiers were stationed along the top of the wall, the sun glinting off their polished armor.  A snatch of melody from the movie Sleeping Beauty ran through Nikki’s head, and she realized that the castle reminded her of the one at Disneyland.  She followed the imps as they trudged in the dusty wake of the knights up to the main gate of the castle.

The female imp ran up to a spear-carrying guard in front of the gate.  The tiny imp hopped up and down in front of the guard until he finally noticed her.  The guard’s top half was covered in steel armor, while his legs were encased in mismatched socks – one leg was blue, the other bright red.  Nikki didn’t know whether to be afraid or to laugh.

The guard’s armor creaked as he bent down and held a whispered conversation with the imp.  After several suspicious glances at Nikki he finally waved at a group of men manning the gate.  They hauled on a massive rope as thick as Nikki’s arm and slowly raised the portcullis which barred the gate.

Her steps echoed on the gate’s wooden drawbridge as Nikki followed the imps into the courtyard of the castle.  She had expected a bleak stone space filled with knights in armor, horses, cannon, maybe even a catapult or two.  But the area they entered was more of a garden than a military drilling field.  Fountains splashed, sparrows hopped across wide green lawns, and wisteria vines drooped from trellises and swayed lazily in the breeze.

The imps headed toward the center of the courtyard, and Nikki followed, her feet crunching on the white gravel path.  They halted at a fountain shaped like a leaping salmon.  A jet of water spouted from the mouth of the fish, spraying a fine mist on a group of people gathered around it. 

Nikki, in her jeans and debate team t-shirt, felt seriously underdressed as she stared at them.  The woolen garments of the townspeople were nowhere in sight.  The people here were decked out in silks and gleaming satin brocade.  The women wore jewels in their hair, and the men had golden chains hanging from their necks.  The glory of their finery was a bit diminished, however, as peeking out from under their silks and satins were the same heavy woolen mismatched socks that the townspeople wore.

One man, standing apart from the rest, wore an elaborately sculpted crown of silver topped with an emerald the size of a chicken egg.  Nikki guessed that this was the king.  He wore a tunic of brilliant sapphire silk worked with fine gold thread, a long dramatic black cloak . . . and mismatched woolen knee socks, one yellow and one Kelly green.  The king was deep in conference with an elderly man with a long white beard.  The elderly man had bushy, overhanging eyebrows which gave his face a mysterious cast, and was wearing a floor-length robe of deepest purple. 

Nikki noticed that the elderly man’s robe was so long that it dragged on the ground, preventing anyone from seeing his feet.  She wondered briefly if he was wearing matching socks and was trying to hide that embarrassing fact.

The female imp, Athena, marched up to the king and tugged on the end of his cloak. 

“Ah, my ambassadors are back,” said the king.  He scooped up Athena and Fuzz and set them on the rim of the white marble basin surrounding the salmon fountain.  “Did you find one of the wise?”

Athena nodded, pointing at Nikki, who blushed and wiped a smudge of dust off her t-shirt. 

The king strode up to Nikki and took her hand in his, pumping it enthusiastically up and down.  “Wonderful.  Wonderful.  So good of you to come.  Welcome to Castle Cogent.  We expect great things of you, you know.”

Nikki wasn’t sure how to respond to this.  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the elderly man in the long purple robe staring at her.  He didn’t look nearly as glad to see her as the king did.  In fact, he was positively glaring at her.

The king waved him forward.  “This is my most trusted and knowledgeable advisor, Maleficious the Wise.  Any help you need on this little problem, you just call on him.  He’ll be only too happy to assist.”

Nikki nodded politely at Maleficious, who stared back at her stonily.  Nikki cleared her throat.  “Um, your majesty, what little problem is this, exactly?”

A look of surprise passed over the king’s face.  He glanced down at the imps.  “I thought Athena had explained things to you.”

Athena blushed, twisting her hands in her skirt.  “We thought that your majesty, who is so eloquent, so articulate, so gifted at the subtleties of speech, could explain much better than we could.”

Nikki thought the imp was laying it on a bit thick, but the king nodded in agreement, a satisfied smile on his face.  She noticed that Maleficious was watching the king with amusement.  She guessed that the king’s ego was something his advisor found very useful.

“Well,” said the king, “let’s get comfortable while I explain.”  He sat down on the marble rim of the fountain and patted the spot next to him.  Nikki joined him, with Athena hovering anxiously nearby.  Fuzz sat down on the rim of the basin and paddled his bare feet in the water.  Maleficious stood a few feet away, glaring down at them all.

“You see, my dear,” the king suddenly paused, looking appalled.  “Goodness.  You must forgive me.  I’ve forgotten to ask your name.”

“My name’s Nikki.”

“Nikki,” repeated the king.  “Lovely name.  So, Nikki, the reason I sent our two ambassadors to search for you is that our wonderful Realm of Reason is rapidly becoming not so reasonable.  For centuries we were the envy of neighboring realms, renowned for our iron-hard grasp of logic, for the hard-headed common sense of our citizens, for the exemplary way we would apply the rules of evidence to all our decisions.”  The king paused, frowning.  “But lately, we’ve noticed superstition and backwardness creeping up on us, especially in our outer provinces.  Reason and rationalism have been abandoned, and the people have adopted all manner of foolery and nonsense.”

“Like the socks,” said Nikki without thinking.  She turned red and mentally whacked her forehead.  Maybe the mismatched socks were just the fashion here, and besides, the king himself was wearing them. 

The king chuckled, not looking the least offended.  “No, my dear, the socks are not foolery.  They are the brilliant invention of Maleficious.”

Nikki glanced nervously up at Maleficious, who smiled coldly at her.  “Er, invention?” she asked.

The king nodded enthusiastically.  “Yes, they are truly a breakthrough.  Mismatched socks.  Who would have thought they were such miracle workers.  I don’t know how Maleficious manages to think of these things.  The mysteries of genius are impenetrable.”

“But,” said Nikki, “what exactly do the socks do?”

“Better to ask what don’t they do,” said the king, stretching his legs out in front of him and picking a miniscule speck of dirt off of his Kelly green sock.  “They cure colds, dissolve warts, heal rashes of all sorts, abolish acne, soothe stomach upsets, and that’s just for starters.”

“Gosh,” said Nikki, trying to look impressed.  Her inner skeptic was jumping up and down so frantically in her brain that she was getting dizzy.  “Um, how do they work?”

“Only Maleficious knows, and he’s not telling.”  The king winked at Maleficious, whose mouth curved into a pained smile.

“Okay,” said Nikki, watching Maleficious warily, “but, how do you know they work?”

Maleficious glared down at her.  “Are you questioning the effectiveness of my discoveries?”  His voice was as raspy as a rusty lock.  “For I’ve spent many long years perfecting them.”

“No, no,” Nikki said quickly.  “I’m not questioning them.  Certainly not.  I just, um, was inquiring about your methods.”

Maleficious frowned, looking not in the least bit appeased, but he cleared his throat importantly and addressed a spot above Nikki’s head.  “As to the question of how I know the socks work, I have collected many responses from sock-wearers as to their efficacy.  The wearer has, for instance, a cold.  He dons the socks, and in an instant, three to four days at most, his cold has disappeared.”

Nikki wiped the incredulous expression from her face and tried to look respectful.  “Colds, you know, can frequently disappear on their own in three to four days.”

Maleficious didn’t look at her.  He addressed the spot above her head again.  “In the case of rashes or stomach upsets, the person has only to wear the socks for a day and the problem will ease.”

“You have, of course, heard of the placebo effect,” Nikki said cautiously.

Maleficious looked down his long, pointed nose at her.

“The what?” asked the king.  “Is this some wondrous technology from your own realm?”

“No,” said Nikki.  “It’s just a very common bodily response.  My mom told me about it.  If people think a certain medicine, or cure, or, in this case, mismatched socks, will help their illness, then frequently it does.  At least a little bit.  The placebo effect won’t cure serious illness, but for minor complaints such as rashes or colds, it can help the body heal itself.  Doctors think it triggers certain chemicals in the brain which then give the immune system a boost.”

The king looked impressed.  Maleficious looked livid, his face taking on a dangerously red tint. 

Nikki was thinking maybe it was time to find the entrance back through the boiler to her own world, when the king spoke.

“Wonderful stuff.  Just wonderful.”  He slapped his knee.  “So, this placebo effect, this is what has actually been curing the people’s colds, rashes, and other sundry complaints?”

“Maybe,” said Nikki, avoiding Maleficious’ eye.  “It’s hard to tell without doing a proper experiment.  So far, all you’ve collected is anecdotal evidence, which is a big no-no.  You’re putting too much faith in the stories a few people tell you.  They could be lying, after all.  Or you could be coming to the wrong conclusion, due to lack of evidence.” 

Maleficious raised himself to his full height and glared down at her.  “Meaning that I, advisor to the king, and the most learned person in the Realm, have come to a false conclusion.”

The king stood up and gave Maleficious a hearty pat on the back.  “Not at all my good fellow.  Not at all.  We all have enormous faith in your abilities.  Why, those daisies you had me tuck down my trousers to clear up my hayfever were a stroke of pure genius.  I haven’t sneezed in several hours.”  He paced back and forth in front of the fountain, kicking up bits of white gravel.  “I think, however, this experiment our illustrious guest is proposing is a grand idea.  The two of you can work together on it.  Really do it up right.”

Maleficious tucked his hands into the voluminous sleeves of his robe.  “I must decline, your majesty.  I have important work to do back in my study.”  He sneered down at Nikki.  “I’m sure our guest can handle things on her own.”  He spun on his heel and stalked away.

Nikki breathed a sigh of relief as Maleficious disappeared through a door in the castle wall.  She turned to the king.  “Um, your majesty?”

The king bent toward her, grabbing at his crown as it slid down his forehead.  “Yes, my dear?”

“Well,” said Nikki, “I was just wondering how long you wanted me to stay here?”

“Stay here?  Oh, you mean stay in the Realm?”

Nikki nodded.  “It’s just that I don’t want my mother to worry about me.”

The king patted Nikki’s shoulder.  “No need to worry about that.  We here in the Realm have occasionally had dealings with other worlds.  Through the gateways, you see.  They are passageways leading out of the Realm.  Athena and Fuzz used one to bring you here.  When someone from outside the Realm uses one of these passageways to come here, we have found that no time, no time at all, passes in their world while they are here.  So you see, your mother will not even notice that you are gone, no matter how long you stay in the Realm.”

“What is the first thing we must do, Miss?” asked Athena. 

“Formulate a hypothesis,” said Nikki.  She pulled a blank piece of parchment toward her and dipped a goose-feather quill into a pot of black ink.  They were seated at a small, wobbly table in the room which the king had assigned to Nikki.  The room was in one of the towers of Castle Cogent.  It was small but comfortably furnished, with a four-poster bed, tapestries on the stone walls, and a spotlessly clean chamber pot.  Nikki eyed the chamber pot nervously, thinking longingly of indoor plumbing.  But with adventures came minor inconveniences she told herself firmly.

She chewed on the end of the quill, thinking.

“What’s she doing?  Is she wasting time already?”  Fuzz climbed onto an empty chair and poked his head over the edge of the table.

“Shhhh!” Athena waved a finger at him.  “She’s formulating a hypothesis.  Be quiet.”

Nikki took the quill out of her mouth and wrote on the parchment.  When she was done the parchment was spotted with ink drops and dribbles.  Writing with a quill was harder than it looked.  Too bad she didn’t have a ballpoint pen with her.  “Okay,” she said.  “Here it is.  See what you think.”  She read from the parchment:

“Hypothesis:  the wearing of mismatched socks does not cure or alleviate illness.” 

Nikki frowned.  “This phrasing means we’ll have to prove a negative:  that mismatched socks do not cure illness.  It’s usually better to state your hypothesis in positive terms.”  She scratched a line through the words on the parchment and wrote a new sentence:

“Hypothesis:  the wearing of mismatched socks cures or alleviates illness.”

Athena scurried around to Nikki’s elbow and read the new sentence.  “But, Miss,” she said worriedly, “doesn’t this say that we agree with Maleficious?”  She shuddered when she said the advisor’s name. 

Nikki peered down at her, wondering why the imps seemed to dislike Maleficious so much.  Admittedly, she hadn’t taken a shine to the man either, but the imps’ dislike seemed excessive.  “Not necessarily,” she said.  “A hypothesis is just a starting point.  Kind of a guess about how something works.  We haven’t formed a final opinion on the matter of mismatched socks yet.  For now we’re going to keep an open mind, and use Maleficious’ claim as our starting point.  We don’t have to agree with it.”

Athena looked unconvinced, but she nodded. 

Nikki re-read the new hypothesis.  “I’m going to change this slightly.  Maleficious claims that mismatched socks cure illnesses.  A very bold statement, which says that the socks banish the illness completely.  He doesn’t mention anything about just helping with pain or symptoms.”  She dragged her quill across the parchment.  “I’ve scratched out the part about alleviating illness.  So, here’s our final hypothesis:”

“Hypothesis:  the wearing of mismatched socks cures illness.”

“What now, Miss?”

Nikki drew a line across the middle of the page.  “Now we plan an experiment to prove our hypothesis true or false.  There are a couple of important things to keep in mind here.  One is to make sure our sample size is large enough.  We must find as many people as possible to be our test subjects.  Also, they must be different kinds of people.  If I were to use only bakers, for instance, then it’s possible that something about being a baker is actually curing their illnesses.  Maybe flour cures colds.  Something like that.  Our goal must be to use people from many different professions, many different age groups, both genders, etc.”  She made a note on the parchment.  “Also, I think we’ll limit our illnesses, just to make things easier.  Maleficious seems to be claiming that the socks cure any illness, but that would be too hard to test.  Maleficious could always claim that our test missed a rare disease which the socks can cure.  There’s no way we can test every single disease.  We have to narrow it down.”  Nikki tried to think back to the conversation around the fountain.

“What illnesses did he list again?”  She chewed on the quill.  “I remember acne, and rashes.  What else?”

“Colds and stomach upsets,” said Fuzz, climbing up onto the table and sitting cross-legged next to the parchment.

“Right.”  Nikki wrote those down and studied her list.  “To make our test as foolproof as possible I’m going to limit it to just colds.  Acne and rashes can take a long time to heal.  Colds will go away within roughly a week, making them easier to test.  And stomach upsets, well, it may not be very scientific, but I don’t want to get barfed on.”

Fuzz nodded energetically in agreement.

“Okay,” said Nikki.  “Since we’re going to limit our testing to colds, I’ll make another small change to our hypothesis.”  Her quill scratched across the parchment.

“Hypothesis:  the wearing of mismatched socks cures colds.”

“Everybody in agreement?” asked Nikki.

Athena nodded and looked at Fuzz, who was excavating his ear wax with the tip of his little finger.  Athena elbowed him in the ribs and he gave a grumpy nod.

“The last thing to keep in mind is objectivity,” said Nikki.  “We need to do a blind test.”

“What’s that, Miss?” asked Athena, primly smoothing her skirt out.

“It means that our test subjects can’t know about the test.  Or at least they can’t know why we’re doing it.  We can’t keep the test completely secret, because we’ll have to ask people questions about their colds, but we don’t have to tell them why we’re asking the questions.  It keeps them from falsifying the data.  For example, say they’re friends of Maleficious.  If we told them we were testing whether or not the socks worked they might be inclined to lie and say yes, even if the socks hadn’t really worked for them.  Or, if the test subjects were afraid of Maleficious, they might lie about the socks so that he wouldn’t get mad at them.  Ideally, we’d do a double blind test, where even the testers don’t know the exact details of the test, but I don’t see how that’s going to be possible in this case.”

Nikki drew a grid on the parchment, consisting of two rows and five columns.

“What’s she doing now?” Fuzz whispered to Athena.  “It looks like she’s going to play Tic-Tac-Toe.  I knew she was a time waster.”

“It’s not Tic-Tac-Toe,” said Nikki.  She labeled the rows and columns and turned the parchment so the imps could see it.  “The two rows represent our test subjects.  We have two types of subjects:  people with colds who are wearing mismatched socks, and people with colds who are not wearing the socks.  The columns represent the outcomes from our experiment.  In column one we’ll record a check mark each time a person’s cold is gone in one day, in column two we’ll put a checkmark each time the cold is gone in two days, and so on.”

“Do you have any more parchment?” Nikki asked.

“Yes, Miss.  One moment.”  Athena hopped down from the table and pattered over to a carved wooden chest on the floor at the foot of the bed.  She shoved open the creaking lid and dived into the chest, emerging with a roll of parchment.

Nikki reached down and scooped up the imp and her burden.  “Thanks, Athena.”  Nikki tore two sheets off the roll.  “I’m just going to make a copy of this grid for each of you.  That way we can split up and collect a lot more data.”

“Well, the socks must work, because Maleficious said so.”  The farmer spat on the ground and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve for good measure.  “He’s the big poobah ‘round these parts.  King’s special pal and all that.  He must know what he’s talking about.”

Nikki raised an eyebrow.  “Have you heard of the logical fallacy called Appeal to Authority?”

“Logical What?  Honey, I got a corn crop to get in the barn.  Every year.  And a wheat crop too.  I ain’t got time for no book-learning stuff like logical thing-a-ma-gigs.”

“Appeal to Authority just means that you’re assuming Maleficious is always right about everything.  You never question him.”

The farmer pulled a grimy handkerchief out of his sleeve and blew his nose.  “Dang right I never question him.  Don’t want to get hauled up in front of the Council, do I?  They’re in his pocket, ain’t they?  Everyone knows that.”

Nikki nodded tiredly and pulled the piece of parchment out of her jeans pocket.  Maleficious certainly had a lot of power in the Realm.  Almost as much as the king himself.  Most of the people she’d talked to seemed afraid of him.  She un-stoppered her little jar of ink and dipped in her quill.  “Okay, so, just a couple more questions.  When did your cold start?”

“Tuesday morn.  I woke up with the most awful head pain.  Put on my socks right away.”  The farmer pointed down at his legs, which were encased in heavy wool, the right leg in royal blue, the left in bright yellow.

“And how are you feeling now?”

“Bit better.  Still sniveling, but less.”

Nikki nodded.  “Today is Friday, so that makes it four days.”  She put a check mark in the appropriate box while the farmer looked on suspiciously.

“Okay,” said Nikki as brightly as she could manage, “that’s it.  Thanks very much for your help.”  She hurried away over the rough furrows of the corn fields, imagining that she could feel the wary gaze of the farmer between her shoulder blades.  She did a quick count of the checkmarks on her piece of parchment.  She’d collected data from forty different test subjects.  Time to head back to the castle and compare notes with the imps.

“Sixty-four!  Wow, Athena, that’s great.  Good work.”  Nikki spread Athena’s piece of parchment on the table next to her own.  “Okay, Fuzz.  How many test subjects did you find?”

“Eight,” said Fuzz, grumpily handing over his piece of parchment, which was mangled and scrunched and gave off a yeasty smell.  “I couldn’t find any sick people in my part of town.”

“But you managed to find a tavern,” said Athena, wrinkling her nose.  “You smell like the inside of an ale glass, Fuzz.”

Fuzz ignored her.  He lay down on the table and closed his eyes.

Nikki un-scrunched Fuzz’s parchment and laid it next to the others.  She tore off a new sheet from the roll and dipped her quill in ink.  “Okay, I’m just going to make a new grid and combine all three of our counts into one.  Give me a sec.”

Athena waited patiently as Nikki’s quill scratched across the parchment.  Fuzz began to snore.

“Okay,” said Nikki, laying down her quill.  “Let’s look at our results.”

Athena prodded Fuzz with her foot.  Fuzz gave a loud snort and sat up, grumbling.

“Let’s deal with the outliers first,” said Nikki.

“What’s an outlier, Miss?” asked Athena.

“It’s a statistical term.  It means something which doesn’t fit.  Something so out of the ordinary that you should leave it out of your count.  Our grids have two categories which I’m going to call outliers:  the “Cured in one day” category, and the “Not cured” category.”  She pointed to the grid, and Athena walked across the table to get a closer look. 

“There is only one checkmark in each of these categories, Miss.”

“Exactly,” said Nikki.  “That’s why I’m going to classify them as outliers and leave them out of our results.  Mathematicians usually say that you shouldn’t exclude outliers unless you have a good reason, but in this case I think there is a good reason.  We know from experience that colds are rarely cured in one day.  That’s why only one of our test subjects fell into this category.  We can’t be sure, but we can make an educated guess as to why the subject fell into this “one day” category.  Maybe what they had was not a cold, but allergies.  Same thing with the “Not cured” category.  For a common cold it’s unlikely that there would be no improvement at all in five days, so we can guess that what the test subject had was not a cold, but something more serious, like bronchitis.”  She drew a slash across the two categories.  “There, we’ve excluded them.  Now, let’s focus on the remaining categories.”  She tapped the parchment with the end of her quill.  “See anything interesting?”

Athena bent forward until her nose was almost touching the parchment.  “Most of the checkmarks are in the category called “Cured in three days”, Miss.”

Nikki nodded.  “I don’t know about you, but from my own experience with colds I’ve found that I’m mostly better by the third day after becoming sick.  So, our data matches with previous experience, which is a good sign.  If our data was way out of line with existing knowledge and experience we might have to conclude that something had gone wrong with our test, and we’d have to do it all over again.  But, I think we’re okay.”  She tapped the grid again.  “This is what’s really interesting.  There are forty-nine checkmarks in the box for “Cured in three days and wearing socks”, and there are fifty-one checkmarks in the box for “Cured in three days and not wearing socks”.

Athena frowned down at the grid.  Even Fuzz got up and ambled over to take a look.

“What’s so interesting about that?” he asked.

“What’s interesting is how similar the counts are.  We can form a conclusion from this.  A conclusion which indicates that our hypothesis is false.”

Athena looked from Nikki to the grid in confusion.  Fuzz scratched his head, unleashing a tiny shower of dandruff.  “I don’t get it,” he said.

Nikki laid her original piece of parchment on top of the piece with the combined totals.  “See?  Here’s what our experiment was trying to prove:”

Hypothesis:  the wearing of mismatched socks cures colds.

“Now, if our hypothesis was correct, then we should have seen a much bigger number of checkmarks in all of the “wearing socks” boxes.  That would indicate that the socks were working – actually curing colds.  Instead, there’s a total of one hundred checkmarks in the “Cured in three days column”, split between socks and no socks.  We see an even split, almost fifty-fifty, between the two boxes.”

Athena began jumping up and down, rattling the wobbly table.  “Oh, Miss.  I see!  I see!  It means the socks made no difference!  People’s colds went away in three days, whether they were wearing the socks or not!”

“Exactly,” said Nikki.

Fuzz nodded sagely.  “It means that that doofus Maleficious is wrong.  His stupid mismatched socks don’t cure colds.  They probably don’t cure anything at all.”

Nikki nodded.  “We’d better go present our results to the king.”

Chapter Three

Everybody Does It

Logical Fallacy:  Appeal to Popularity

“Did you see his face?”  Fuzz laughed so hard that he stumbled and fell over.  He rolled around on the leaf-covered path, holding his sides as tears ran down his cheeks and his ears turned red. 

Athena primly picked up her skirt and stepped over him.  “Yes, we saw it.  It was very angry and purple, but that’s no reason to roll around in the mud like a pig.”

Nikki laughed and bent down to set Fuzz back on his feet.  He promptly fell over again in a fit of giggles.  Fuzz wasn’t the only one in a good mood.  All three of them had been highly praised by the king for their debunking of the mismatched socks myth.  He’d thrown them a party in the courtyard of Castle Cogent, complete with fireworks, swans gliding on the castle fountains, and a banquet table heaped with roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and pecan pie topped with whipped cream.  The only person at the party not in a good mood had been Maleficious, who had glowered at Nikki from under his heavy eyebrows the entire time. 

Nikki looked nervously over her shoulder at the dark wood behind them.  Was it just her imagination, or had something moved in the shadow of the trees?  She wondered if Maleficious was angry enough to send someone to follow them.  He hadn’t been pleased when the king had announced that he was sending Nikki and the imps on a journey through the Realm to fight superstition and ignorance.  Nikki peered into the trees, but the only creature she saw was a sparrow hopping along the ground, pecking for seeds.

“What is it, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Nothing,” said Nikki, pulling up the hood of the woolen cloak the king had given her.  The cloak looked strange worn over her t-shirt, jeans, and muddy sneakers, but it was warm and it repelled the rain which was beginning to fall.  “How much farther is it to this village?”

“Not far, Miss.  Not far.  The king sends us imps there frequently with messages to the town council.  We make the trip in less than four hours.”

“Would one of you like to ride on my shoulders?” asked Nikki a little hesitantly.  She wasn’t sure if this suggestion was violating some rule or other.

Fuzz stopped laughing and hurried eagerly toward her, but Athena waved her finger at him.  “No, Miss,” she said.  “Thank you, but we imps are used to walking.  Don’t be fooled by our small size.  We are proud to be the king’s messengers.  It’s a tradition of our race, and we are great walkers because of it.  My grandmother could walk non-stop for two days, right up to the day she died.”

“Huh,” said Nikki.  Making an old lady walk for two days straight didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do, but who was she to judge?  This was a different world, with different customs.  She shivered and crossed her arms under the cloak.  Night was falling, and she could see her breath hanging in the air like puffs of smoke.  “What’s the name of the place we’re going to again?  Popularity?”

“Popularnum, Miss.”

“Kind of a strange name.  Does it mean that the village is a popular place to live?”

Behind her Fuzz let out a loud snort. 

Athena ignored him.  “No, Miss.  It means that  . . . well, I hate to be rude, but . . .”

“It means that the people who live there have kumquats for brains,” said Fuzz, running up to a pitcher plant growing at the roots of an oak tree.  He tipped one of its bright green leaves toward him and greedily swallowed the dew which had gathered there.

“Fuzz, stop that at once!”  Athena ran up and shooed him away from the plant. 

Nikki watched Fuzz as he staggered away from the plant.  He seemed to have a hard time following the path, and there was a goofy grin on his face.  She glanced back at the pitcher plant, its bright leaves waving innocently in the evening breeze.  “Um, Athena . . .” she said, pointing at Fuzz as he tripped over a tree root and fell face down into patch of mossy ferns.

Athena waved her hands in a flurry of embarrassment.  “Never mind him, Miss.  Never mind.”  She darted on ahead, so that Nikki had to jog to catch up. 

“The village of Popularnum,” continued Athena when they were a good distance ahead of Fuzz, “bears that name because its inhabitants have an unfortunate habit of following trends.  Trends which become very popular.”

Nikki frowned down at her.  “But, everybody follows trends.  There’s a new trend every week at my high school.  Just last week everyone was obsessed with Nirvana t-shirts.  I practically got kicked out of the cafeteria at lunch time because I wasn’t wearing one.”

Athena shook her head.  “The Realm has that kind of thing also, but Popularnum is different.  The villagers there go to very great extremes.  They will bankrupt themselves to follow a trend.  I was there just last month.  The nobility of the town had taken to wearing ostrich-feather hats.  There are very few ostriches in the Realm, and they do not like having their tail feathers pulled out to make hats.  They kick the feather-pullers, and, as you can imagine, ostrich-kicks can cause great injury.  So, the hats were very expensive.  Yet, all the people in the village of Popularnum had to have the hats.  It caused much poverty and distress.”

“Appeal to Popularity,” murmured Nikki.

“Pardon me, Miss?”

“Appeal to Popularity.  It’s the name of a logical fallacy.  We learned about it in debate class.  Those socks of Maleficious’s were an example of the logical fallacy called Appeal to Authority.  Everybody was treating Maleficious as if he couldn’t possibly be wrong.  As if he was the ultimate authority.  Appeal to Popularity treats popular opinion as if it’s the ultimate authority.  Something which should never be questioned.”

Athena looked up at her.  “Are we going to question it, Miss?”

Nikki shook her head thoughtfully.  “Appeal to Popularity is a tough thing to fight.  Let’s wait until we see what’s going on in the town before we make any plans.”

The next morning dawned bright and clear.  The rain-washed cobblestone streets of Popularnum shone in the sun as if each stone had been scrubbed with tooth-whitener.  Nikki took a seat on a bench next to front door of the inn where they’d spent the night.  She stretched out her legs and took a bite out of the pastry the inn’s landlord had given her.  It was warm from the oven and oozed currants and brown sugar.  Nikki devoured it in four bites and licked her fingers, wondering if she could scrounge another one.  She was just about to head back inside on a pastry search when her attention was caught by a man passing by.  Nikki’s mouth fell open, pastry forgotten.

Apparently the mismatched socks had not made it to Popularnum.  The man’s legs from the knee down were both encased in plain grey socks.  The rest of his attire looked similar to what she’d seen the men in Castle Cogent wearing.  A forest green tunic covered most of him, with poofy pants that reminded Nikki of a Shakespeare play she’d once seen.  So, none of this was particularly eye-catching.  No, what had banished thoughts of warm pastry from her mind was the ruff.

And what a ruff it was.  At least three feet to a side, it circled the man’s neck like a wagon wheel.  A wagon wheel fashioned of silver wire and covered with what looked like very expensive embroidered lace.  Twinkling ornaments dangled from the edge of the ruff.  Silver, red, and shiny green, they made the man look like a walking Christmas tree.

The morning breeze caught the front edge of the ruff, and Nikki watched as the man struggled to stay upright.  He tacked down the street like a sailboat before the wind, narrowly avoiding a horse hitched to a cart filled with turnips.  Nikki could have sworn the horse rolled its eyes as the man passed.

“There you are, Miss.”  Athena emerged from a tiny opening set into the front door of the inn like a cat flap.  The innkeeper had built it for the use of the imps who often stayed there on business from the king.  “Did you sleep well?”

Nikki nodded abstractedly.  “Athena, look at that man.  Quick, before he disappears around the corner.  What on earth is he wearing?”

Athena darted into the street to get a better look, then returned, shaking her head.  “It’s another fad, Miss.  Just like the ostrich feather hats.  Very expensive, this one looks.”

“Not to mention impractical,” said Nikki.  “How on earth would you get through a doorway wearing something like that?”

Athena leaned forward, backward, and then bent herself sideways.  "I believe you would need to go through the door sideways, Miss.  Possibly while bending your head down to your knees at the same time."

Nikki stared at her.  "That's nuts."

Athena nodded.  "Yes, Miss."  She climbed up the side of the bench, using tiny stair-like notches in the wood that Nikki hadn't noticed, and sat down.  "If you'll take my advice, Miss, we should start by going to the town hall.  The nobility of the town gather there most days to show off their finery.  In this case, to show off their ruffs.  The trends in Popularnum usually start with the nobility, and are then picked up by the rest of the population."

Nikki nodded.  "Sounds like a plan."  She stood and stretched.  "Where's Fuzz?  Is he still sleeping?"

Athena's cheeks turned red.  "Yes, Miss.  He is sleeping off the . . . I mean to say, he is a bit under the weather this morning.  Perhaps we should go to the town hall without him."

It was ruffs galore.  Big ones, bigger ones, and gigantic ones.  Their wearers bumped into each other like ungainly circus clowns, nearly knocking each other over.  Tinkling ornaments hanging off the ruffs crashed to the floor and shattered.  Nikki and Athena pressed themselves against the wall to avoid the chaos.  The central meeting room of the town hall was very impressive, with gold-leaf mosaics on the walls depicting swans gliding among reed-filled ponds.  Its high, arched ceiling was also covered in gold.  In the center of the roof sparkled a mosaic of a giant ear of corn done in gold coins and emeralds.

Nikki pointed at the ceiling.  "What's with the corn?"

Athena craned her tiny neck upward.  "Corn is the symbol of this area of the Realm, Miss.  It is the most important commodity.  This area exports corn to all the Realm, and has grown wealthy because of it, though the citizens tend to waste all the money they make from corn on frippery such as these silly ruffs."

"Hmm."  Nikki gazed thoughtfully up at the giant ear of corn as it twinkled in the light from the torches scattered around the hall.  "I'm beginning to get an idea."

Athena looked up at her in surprise.  "Are you, Miss?  From corn?"

"Yes, from corn."

“Fuzz, you are painting your foot.”

Athena set down the corn husk she’d been braiding and marched across the tabletop to Fuzz, who was covered in splotches of blue paint.

They were back at the inn where they had spent the night.  They'd spent the morning collecting dried corn husks, and these were now piled high on a creaky wooden table in the inn’s common room.  They had the room with its crackling fire all to themselves.  Shiny copper pans hung from the rafters, and a moldy moose head with one glass eye looked down on them from its perch above the rough-hewn granite fireplace.

Athena tugged at one of Fuzz’s feet, nearly causing him to topple over into the half-eaten bowl of stew leftover from Nikki’s lunch.  Grumbling, Fuzz motioned her away and stripped a sticky, paint-covered corn husk off the bottom of his foot.

Athena took the husk from him with a disgusted look and dropped it into the rapidly growing pile of rejects in the center of the table.  She sat down again and with careful concentration continued braiding the ornate hair ornament she was making.

Nikki looked over at Athena’s delicate artistry and sighed.  She could sympathize with Fuzz.  Her own arms were covered in paint splotches, and she was leading Fuzz in terms of the number of rejects in the pile.  Arts and Crafts had never been her strong suit.

She watched as Athena dipped a dried husk into a bowl of water to soften it, and then gently worked it into the braid.  She tried to copy the imp’s hand motions, but her own husks insisted on turning to stringy mush instead of intricate braids.

Nikki sighed.  “This just isn’t working.  Athena, why don’t you do the braiding, and Fuzz and I will concentrate on the painting.  We won’t be able to make as many hair ornaments as we’d planned, but at least the ones we do make won’t look so awful.”  She held up her mess of husks.  “No one is going to wear this.”

Athena nodded.  “No, Miss.  I will braid faster.”  She held up her creation, which resembled a straw version of the large combs Spanish women put in their hair to hold up their lace mantillas.  “This will look very nice in your dark hair, Miss.  All the ladies in the town will want one.”

Nikki looked at her doubtfully.  “Just because I'm wearing it?”

“Yes, Miss.  You are an emissary from the king, which makes you a person of high importance and status.  The people in Popularnum are very aware of status.  The very minute after we checked into this inn last night I assure you that the innkeeper ran to the town hall to spread the news that we had arrived.  And at the town hall today, people were watching you very closely.  Yes, Miss.  I can guarantee you that anything you do will be watched and copied.”

Nikki shrugged uncomfortably.  “Okay, well, I guess if I wear your beautiful hair ornament the ladies of the town might copy me, but what about the men?”

“Medals, Miss.”

“Medals?”

Athena put down the hair ornament and picked up a brightly colored object she had left to dry.  It looked to Nikki like a straw version of something she'd once seen on the uniform of an army general.

“Er, is that official?   I mean aren't military medals usually made out of bronze?”

“Yes, Miss, but we will tell the townspeople that this is the latest fashion, that all the knights and courtiers closest to the king have been awarded these new types of medals.  I assure you all the men of the town will be clamoring for them.”

A sputtering sound came from Fuzz.  Laughing loudly, he rolled across the tabletop, holding his sides and nearly knocking over a pot of yellow paint.  “New types of medals.  A bald-faced lie!  Hee-hee.  I never thought I'd see the day.”  He pointed a paint-covered finger at Athena.  “Miss Priss is going to lie.”

Athena gave a dignified shrug.  “Yes, I am.  It is for a worthy cause.  We can't allow the people of Popularnum to sink into poverty.  Not if we can do something to prevent it.”

Fuzz snorted.  “You might be able to get rid of the ruffs, but as soon as we're gone they'll be right back at it with something new.  Buying useless, expensive stuff until they’re bankrupt.”

Nikki thought that Fuzz was probably right, but she refrained from saying anything.  Athena was working so hard, it seemed a shame to have doubts.

“I simply must have one in pink.”  The elderly lady wedged one of Athena’s creations deeper into her fluffy white hair and admired the effect in the gilt-edged mirror.

“Pink will look lovely on you, Ma’am.”  Athena scampered across the dressing table to a pile of ornaments.  “Try this one, madam,” she said to a jaundiced looking woman in blue satin.  “It will look wonderful in your lustrous tresses.”

Nikki raised an eyebrow.  Yikes.  Talk about laying it on thick.  Athena was getting a bit carried away by this lying business, but she had to admit that it seemed to be working.  The corners of the dressing room were piled high with discarded ruffs. 

They were in the ladies salon, an elaborately decorated room in the town hall.  The female half of Popularnum’s nobility crowded in front of its gilt mirrors and ruffle-skirted dressing tables.  Athena dashed here and there across the tops of the dressing tables, hopping over pots of powder and rouge, snatching up the corn-husk ornaments and flattering shamelessly as she tucked them into elaborate hairdos.

Seeing that Athena had things under control, Nikki quietly left the salon.  Time to check on Fuzz.  Hopefully he was doing as well with the men. 

After wandering the corridors of the town hall she finally found the library, a dark and musty room paneled in knotted oak and decorated with heraldic shields where the men of the town's nobility had gathered to smoke cigars. 

Nikki peered through the half-open door.

Fuzz was standing on top of a carved oak table in the center of the room, leaning casually against a marble inkstand and puffing away at a cigar nearly as long as he was.  He waved at Nikki and lazily blew a smoke ring in her direction. 

Nikki crossed the room to him.  “Hey, Fuzz.”  She surveyed the library.  Just as in the ladies salon, the corners of this room were also piled high with discarded ruffs.  “Looks like it's going great.  Only one holdout.”

Fuzz nodded and pointed his cigar at a red-faced, pot-bellied man who was wearing an immense ruff and trying to look nonchalant about it.  “Old McManus is the last.  He's still wearing his cause he's made a bundle of money on the ruffs.  He setup a workshop to make them when the craze first took off, and now he'll lose a bundle if people move on to something else.”

“Why don’t you point out to him that Athena can come to his workshop and show his workers how to make the corn-husk ornaments.  He won’t be able to charge as much for them, but that’s kind of the point.”

Fuzz looked skeptical.  “I don’t know.  McManus isn’t the type to let his profits shrink without a fight.”

“Well, just point out to him that no one in this room is currently wearing his ruffs.  If no one buys them then he won’t have any profits at all.  And point out that the king himself has said how important our corn-husk ornaments are to the welfare of the Realm.”

Fuzz glanced up at her, grinning.  “The king said that, did he?”

Nikki shrugged.  “Okay, maybe he didn’t say exactly that, but I’m sure it was implied.”  She lifted Fuzz off the table and set him on the floor.  “Just go over there and talk that ruff off of him.”

Chapter Four

Fortune Teller

Logical Fallacy:  Lack of Evidence

Nikki hummed a little tune under her breath.  They had passed the last house in Popularnum and were on the road again, walking at an easy pace down a road lined with flowering plum trees.  She reached up and broke off a twig covered in tiny pink flowers.  The sun was shining, the blue sky was filled with puffy clouds, and Nikki was beginning to enjoy her adventure in the Realm of Reason. 

Their visit to Popularnum had been a success.  The townspeople had discarded their expensive lace ruffs for the much cheaper corn-husk ornaments, and the town now had money piling up in its coffers again.

That was two successes in a row – first they’d proven that Maleficious’ mismatched socks cure didn’t work, and now they'd saved a whole town from poverty and ruin.  Nikki was feeling pretty cocky, which was probably why she had stopped looking over her shoulder to see if they were being followed by one of Maleficious’ minions.

And why Rufius took them so completely by surprise.

*              *              *              *              *

“Fuzz, you are eating too much cheese.”   Athena wagged her finger at Fuzz as he pulled his head out of a wheel of brie they'd bought at one of Popularnum's market stalls.

Fuzz wiped the gooey cheese from his whiskers and took a swig from a straw-covered bottle that Nikki suspected was filled with wine.  “I have to keep up my strength.  We've got a long walk today.”  He burped and lay back in the long grass which bordered the road.  “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my after-lunch nap.”

The sound of snoring rose from the waving fronds of grass. 

Athena sighed.  “He will sleep for hours, Miss.  I suggest we go on without him”

Nikki looked at her doubtfully.  “Will he be able to catch up with us?”

“Don’t worry about that, Miss.  Fuzz is very resourceful.  At least, when he wants to be.”

“Okay,” said Nikki.  She glanced down at the snoring Fuzz and giggled.  “Newton’s First Law.”

“Pardon, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Oh, nothing,” said Nikki.  “Bad joke.  Fuzz just reminded me of Newton’s First Law of Motion:  an object at rest tends to stay at rest.”

“I see, Miss,” said Athena still looking confused.  She pulled a piece of parchment out of her pocket.  “Should I make a note of this law?”

“No, no,” said Nikki, waving her hands.  “It’s not important.  Well, actually it’s an important law of physics, but I need to talk to you about something else.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“I noticed in Popularnum that there weren’t very many of your people living there.  Imps, I mean.  I noticed the same thing in Castle Cogent.  What’s up with that?  Are there just fewer of you?”

Athena frowned and looked down at her skirt, brushing at a miniscule smudge of dirt.  Finally she looked up at Nikki.  “No, Miss.  There are more of us than you might suspect.  It’s just that we have been moved.”

“Moved?” asked Nikki in confusion.

“Yes, Miss.  It is a new policy, created by Maleficious.  He thinks that the imps should be confined to the outskirts of the Realm.  He has forced many imps to move to the Woeful Wasteland.  They had to leave their homes, their jobs, everything.”

“That’s terrible,” said Nikki.  “Have you tried fighting it?  Maybe you could complain to the king.”

Athena shook her head sadly.  “The king has become more and more under Maleficious’s thumb, especially in this last year.  It pains me to say this, Miss, but it is partly the king’s own fault.  He is a decent man, but he is not as smart as his uncle, who was king before him.  Maleficious has found it easy to fool him.  Also, the king is lazy.  He is happy to hand over most of the details of running the Realm to Maleficious.”

“But, what does Maleficious have against the imps?”

“I do not know, Miss.  I believe he is just a bit of a bully, and we imps make easy targets.”  She stood up, wiping grass off her skirt.  “We should be on our way, Miss.  There is still a long way to travel.”

Nikki stood up and opened the canvas rucksack she’d purchased in Popularnum.  It held her woolen cloak, a few apples, a loaf of rye bread, and parchment for writing on.  She put the half-eaten wheel of cheese into it and slung the rucksack over her shoulders.  They stepped back onto the road.  Athena scurried along beside her, taking five steps for each of Nikki’s.

“If you will take my suggestion, Miss, we should head for the Isle of Ignorance.  It is only a few miles away.  They hold a daily market there which attracts many foolish people, and many people who prey on the foolish.  Fortuna the Fortunate is the worst of these.”

“Why?  What does she do?”

“She is a fortune teller, Miss.  She promises silly people fame and fortune.  These silly people stop tilling their fields and working in their shops because they believe things will just fall into their laps, without any hard work.  Their fortune says so.”

Nikki adjusted the straps on her rucksack.  “But, why do they believe these fortunes?  Have any of them come true?”

“No, none have ever come true, that I know of.  But it doesn’t matter, Miss.  People insist on believing in these fortunes.  Fortuna is very skilled at making her fortunes seem wonderful.  People want to believe them, no matter how unlikely they are.  It causes much distress.  The Isle of Ignorance is one of the poorest areas in the Realm.  They don’t have Popularnum’s rich harvests of corn.  The soil on the Isle is very bad, not good for farming.  The people living there cannot afford to listen to Fortuna’s silly predictions.”

The market on the Isle of Ignorance was very different from the one in Popularnum.  The market stalls in Popularnum had been piled high with apples and cabbages, corn, potatoes, loaves of bread, and squawking geese.  The food stalls Nikki and Athena walked past now were almost entirely bare.  The stall owners rather desperately waved moldy turnips at passing customers, most of who kept on walking.

The busiest stalls sold strange looking amulets and potions.  Nikki stopped at one stall which was selling small glass baubles with an eye painted in the center.  They reminded her of a picture she’d once seen in a travel book on Turkey – Turkish people wore blue glass amulets to protect against the evil eye.  She was about to pickup one up when she caught the owner watching her suspiciously.  She left and hurried to catch up with Athena, who was marching determinedly toward a gaudy stall at the far end of the market.

This stall was one of the biggest.  Colorful flags were strung from an old yew tree which grew next to the stall.  Behind the tree a large tent was pitched, its canvas sides decorated with strange symbols painted in deep purple and shining gold.

A young man was examining the stall’s offerings.  He picked up a tiny scroll of parchment and unrolled it.  “By the time the moon waxes and wanes three times in its full cycle through the heavens you will be showered with riches beyond imagining.”

He turned and winked at Nikki.  “That seems most unlikely.  I can imagine a very large amount of riches, if I set my mind to it.”

Nikki smiled politely, if a bit reluctantly.  Something about the man made her uneasy, though it was nothing she could put her finger on.  He was neatly dressed in a black tunic which reached to his knees.  He wore braided sandals which had not a speck of dust on them, and his dark hair was wavy and carefully trimmed.  His skin was very pale, as if he spent most of his days hiding from the sun in some dark cave.

Athena cleared her throat.  “Miss, let me see a few of those fortunes, please.”

Nikki selected three scrolls at random and handed them down to Athena. 

The imp unrolled them and scanned them quickly, shaking her head and making disapproving noises.  “The usual silliness.  You will marry a wealthy prince and never have to work again.  You will become suddenly attractive to the opposite sex at the next full moon.  You will find pots of gold under your turnip patch if you sleep beneath a beech tree for five nights in a row.”  She re-furled the scrolls and handed them back to Nikki.  “Come, Miss,” she said, gesturing.  “Fortuna is most likely in her tent.”

Nikki followed the imp as she headed toward the tent behind the stall.  She noticed that the young man who’d been examining the scrolls was watching them. 

Nikki stopped at the tent’s entrance, blinking.  It was very dark inside, with an odd blue glow coming from the center.  The tent was tall enough to stand in, its fabric sides billowing slightly with the breeze.

“Come in, my dears.  Come in.”  A short woman with dark hair so long it nearly dragged on the ground came toward them.  She seemed to be dressed entirely in scarves.  Purple silk scarves, shiny gold satin scarves, blue velvet scarves, all wrapped around her in a confusing tangle of colors.  She bent low and smiled at Athena.  Several of her teeth were missing.  “Athena, darling.  How have you been?  And how is the dear King?  Doing well, I hope?”

Athena frowned up at her.  “The king is fine.  Allow me to present his emissary.”  She gestured at Nikki, who nodded awkwardly. 

“The king’s emissary.  My goodness.  I am honored.”  The fortune teller swept forward, scarves rustling, and grasped Nikki’s hands.  “Come, dear.  I must show you my newest wonder.  It comes from far across the sea, from magical lands where palm trees wave under balmy skies.”  She pulled Nikki into the center of the tent.

At first Nikki thought she was looking at some sort of TV screen flashing with bright lights and colors.  But then she remembered that she’s seen no sign of electricity, much less advanced technology like television, anywhere in the Realm.  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she realized that the glow was coming from a huge fish tank.  Candles on tall metal holders illuminated the tank from behind.  Tropical fish of all sorts and colors filled the tank, swimming lazily between fronds of kelp. 

“Isn’t it wonderful?  Isn’t it beautiful?” asked Fortuna, scarves fluttering in excitement. 

“It’s certainly beautiful,” said Nikki.  “It’s a lovely way to decorate your tent.”

Fortuna shook her head violently.  “Decoration?  No, no, my dear.  It is much more than that.  This is my pride and joy, the center of my life’s work.  This . . .”  Fortuna paused for effect.  “This is how I create my Fish Fortunes.”

Athena made a sound remarkably similar to one of Fuzz’s snorts.  She put her hands on her hips and looked up expectantly at Nikki. 

“Er,” said Nikki, playing for time by stepping closer to the tank to examine the fish.  This king’s emissary stuff was hard work.  Especially when Athena stood there expecting her to come up with ideas off the top of her head.  “How does this work, exactly?”

“The secret is known only to myself,” Fortuna said, waving her arms dramatically.  “But I will create a Fish Fortune for you, free of charge.  If you would be so kind as to tell the king of my fabulous Fish Fortunes, that would be payment enough.”

“Er, maybe,” said Nikki.  “Let me see it in action first.”

“Of course, my dear.  Of course.  If you will just stand on this star painted on the floor.”  Fortuna maneuvered Nikki to the spot and then faced the fish tank.  She bowed low, her scarves sweeping the floor, and then stood gazing at the tank for so long that Nikki wondered if she’d fallen asleep. 

“It has been revealed!” Fortuna cried suddenly, making Athena and Nikki jump.  She grabbed Nikki’s hands and shook them ecstatically.  “Oh, my dear, you have the most wonderful future ahead of you.”  She rushed to the fish tank, her hands caressing the glass.  “Did you see how the blue guppy swam in front of the school of clown fish?  How the silver minnows swam to the very top of the tank and then dove straight to the bottom?  The meaning is clear:  you will have riches beyond imagining.  And did you see how the Yellow Tang did somersaults through the kelp bed?  A sure sign that you will find true love before the next full moon.”

“Um, okay,” said Nikki.  “That’s great, I guess.  Very, uh, optimistic.  We have something similar to your fish tank in the place I come from.  It’s called astrology.  People look up at the sky and try to make predictions based on the movement of the stars and planets.  Saturn seems to be very important, for some reason.  Astrologers are always going on about how Saturn affects people’s love lives.”

“The movement of the stars and planets?”  Fortuna’s eyebrows raised up to her hairline.  “My dear, that is ridiculous.  The people of your world must be very uneducated and superstitious.  No one in their right mind could possibly think that stars and planets affect their love lives.  The one has nothing to do with the other.  No, everyone knows that if you want accurate predictions of the future you must turn to fish.  Fish Fortunes are the only reliable way to see into the misty events which have yet to come.”

“Fish,” said Nikki, rubbing her forehead.  Fish Fortunes were giving her a headache just the way astrology did.  They were both so idiotic she felt dumber just thinking about them.  Something her mother had once said about astrology came back to her.  Astrology was difficult to contradict because the predictions it made were so vague.  The way to disprove it was to ask for a very specific prediction.

“This, um, information about my love life is very interesting,” said Nikki, “But I have a question I’d like to ask your fish.  Athena and I have been traveling through the Realm on foot.  So far it’s been a very pleasant trip, with good weather.  Only a bit of rain on the day we walked to Popularnum.  But tomorrow we have a long way to go.  I’d really like to know what the weather’s going to be like.  Will it rain, or will it be nice and sunny?  How cold will it be?”

A chuckle came from behind them.  Nikki turned and saw the young man in the black tunic leaning against a tent pole.

“An excellent question,” he said.  “I'm also journeying tomorrow.  A weather report would come in very handy.  I'm surprised you haven't added them to your repertoire, Fortuna.  The local farmers would pay handsomely for accurate ones.”

Fortuna glared at him before turning to Nikki with a simpering smile.  "My dear, this wondrous tank is designed to predict important matters.  To ask it to provide a thing as trivial as a daily weather report would be to do it a great injustice.  You wouldn’t use the king’s expensive china to feed his pigs, would you?"

Nikki felt a tug on her pants leg.  Athena was staring up at her, a meaningful look in her eye.  The imp jerked her head toward the tent entrance.  Nikki nodded. 

“Um, thanks, Fortuna.  Your Fish Fortunes are certainly interesting.  We’ll just be going now.  We have, um, a prior engagement.”

Nikki followed Athena out of the tent, trying to ignore the stare of the young man in the black tunic.   

They walked to the end of the market, where the line of stalls ended at a grassy field filled with dandelions.  Athena sat down on a mossy boulder.  Nikki perched on a tree stump nearby.

“Miss, I could see that we were getting nowhere with Fortuna.  The two of us are not enough.  What we need is an audience.”

“An audience?”

“Yes, Miss.  It was that young man who gave me the idea, when he made his remark about farmers.  What we should do is to gather all the local farmers at Fortuna’s tent, and tell them that she will make a weather prediction for the next day.  For a price, of course.”

Nikki slipped her rucksack off and laid it against the tree stump.  “Do you think she’ll do it?”

Athena shrugged.  “She won’t want to, but if enough people insist on it, I think she will have no choice.  Especially if they are waving money at her.”

Nikki plucked a dandelion and twirled it between her fingers.  “Just asking her to predict rain or sunshine isn’t enough.  She’ll have a fifty-fifty chance of being right.  She could make a correct prediction just by being lucky.”  She stared thoughtfully at the bright yellow petals of the dandelion.  “Do you have thermometers here in the Realm?”

“Thermometers, Miss?  No, I don’t believe so.  What are they?”

“Devices which show how warm or cold the air temperature is.  They use a column of mercury which rises or falls depending on how warm or cold the outside air is.”

“Oh, yes Miss.  We have something like this, though we call them thermoscopes.  They have little glass balls floating in a tube of water.  When it is warm outside the little glass balls float higher in the tube.  The tube has notches on it called heat marks.  Today, for instance, it is nice and sunny.  It is about 65 heat marks.  A cloudy, rainy day would be about 40 heat marks, and a snowy day in the middle of winter would be about 15 heat marks.”

“So your heat mark scale is measured in steps of five?”

Athena nodded.  “Yes, Miss.”

“That should work very well,” said Nikki.  “It’s nice and specific.  We’ll ask Fortuna to predict what the temperature will be at noon tomorrow, to within five degrees.  That’s called an error bar.  She doesn’t have to be exactly right, just within a certain range.”

“I see, Miss.  If the thermoscope shows 50 heat marks, then Fortuna’s prediction can be as high as 55, or as low as 45, and still be correct.”  She hopped down from the boulder.  “Very good, Miss.  Let’s see how many people we can convince to come to Fortuna’s tent.”

Nikki felt something bump into her legs.  She looked down.  Fuzz was lying on his back in the middle of the street, giggling.

Athena bustled over to him, clucking her tongue.  “Fuzz, get up this instant.  You are making a fool of yourself.”  She sniffed the air.  “Also, you smell.”

Fuzz grinned loopily.  “Had a fight with a pig.  Stupid pig was just standing there in its pigsty, giving me the eye, so of course I had to take a swing at it.  Would have knocked it out cold, only it suddenly ran to its feedbox and I fell headfirst into the pigsty.  Also, I might have had a quick look inside a tavern or two.  Before I met up with the pig.”  He pulled himself to his feet, splodges of mud dropping off him.  “What’s with this crowd, anyway?  Is there a circus in town?”

“No,” said Athena shortly.  “We have been very busy while you were wasting time boxing with pigs.  We have convinced everyone to come to Fortuna the Fortunate’s tent.  Come along.”

Fortuna’s scarves were drooping, and her face had taken on a sickly green cast.  “But Athena, my dear, I can’t possibly perform in front of such a huge crowd.  My inner eye needs peace and quiet, not crowds and noise.”  She gestured toward the fish tank.  “Just look at my poor fish.  They are agitated and upset.”

“Faker!” someone cried from the center of the crowd inside Fortuna’s tent.  To Nikki the voice sounded like Fuzz trying to imitate one of the local farmers, but she decided not to point this out.

Their efforts to collect an audience had certainly been successful.  It seemed like the entire population of the Isle of Ignorance was crammed into the tent.  Its fabric sides bulged as people pushed to get a better look at the enormous fish tank. 

Nikki watched in concern as Athena and Fortuna argued.  Fortuna was inching toward the back of the tent.  It looked like she was going to refuse to bow to Athena’s request.  Suddenly someone pushed through the crowd and stood in front of the fish tank.  It was the young man in the black tunic.

He put his fingers to his lips and produced an ear-splitting whistle.  The tent became silent as everyone stared at him in surprise.

“Friends,” he said, calmly addressing the crowd.  “I think our illustrious fortune teller needs a bit of encouragement.”  He pulled a gold coin out of his pocket, held it up, and then handed it to Fortuna.  He motioned to the crowd, and soon Fortuna found herself showered by coins of various value as people threw them at her from all corners of the tent.

Fortuna scrabbled on the canvas floor of the tent, collecting the coins.  The young man in the black tunic motioned to Athena and Nikki and the three of them melted away into the crowd.  Fortuna found herself all alone in the center of the tent.  The light from the tall candles behind the fish tank shone on her nervous face as she faced the silent onlookers.

“My dear neighbors,” she began in a shaky voice, wrapping her scarves around her.  “My dear neighbors, I will do as you ask.  Rain or sunshine tomorrow.  That is the question I will ask my wondrous fish.”

“Temperature!” yelled a voice in the crowd, a voice which sounded like Fuzz with a severely stuffed-up nose.  “We want to know what the temperature will be.”  The unseen person uttered a curse and muttered at someone to stop elbowing him.  “At noon!  We want to know what the temperature will be at noon tomorrow.”

Fortuna looked like she was about to refuse, but others in the tent took up the cry.  The fortune teller smiled a sickly smile and bowed to the crowd.  They became silent as she stepped onto the star painted on the floor.  She raised her scarf-draped arms toward the fish tank and bowed her head. 

“Sixty heat marks,” said Fuzz, surveying the cloudless blue sky above them.  “And not a drop of rain.  Not exactly 40 heat marks and a thundershower, is it?”  He chuckled.  “I wonder if Fortuna gave back any of the money?”

Chapter Five

The Benighted Knight

Logical Fallacy:  Ad Hominem

“Stupid bug!”  Fuzz swung at a mosquito which was aiming for his nose.  The mosquito buzzed furiously and dove straight at him.  Fuzz ducked, slipped on a muddy rock in the middle of the path, and fell face first into a puddle ringed with swamp grass. 

“Fuzz!”  Athena leaned over the puddle and whacked Fuzz on the head with a cattail reed she had picked to swat away bugs.  “Now you will smell like a swamp for the rest of the day.”  She stood, hands on hips, shaking her head as Fuzz picked himself up coughing and spluttering.

He spat out a mouthful of muddy water.  “It wasn’t my idea to take a shortcut through this stupid swamp.  Nobody travels through the Marsh of Misdirection in the summertime.  Everyone knows you should stay on the road.  Plus, there’s a nice little tavern at the crossroads, only a few miles along.  We could have stopped there for lunch.”

“Stopped there for ale, you mean.”  Athena waved the cattail reed at him.  “We are king’s messengers.  We are entrusted with a serious mission to fight ignorance and superstition in the Realm.  How would it look if the king’s messengers were seen lolling about in taverns with ale foam on their chins?”

“I don’t care how it would look,” grumbled Fuzz as he wiped a slimy piece of pond scum off his cheek.  “I’d rather have foam on my chin than bugs in my ears.”

Nikki waited patiently on the path while the imps squabbled.  Privately, she was inclined to agree with Fuzz.  So far, the Marsh of Misdirection was her least favorite place in the Realm.  She scratched the bug bites on her arms and surveyed the landscape.  Nothing but muddy water and beds of tall reeds as far as the eye could see.

She sniffed the air.  A nasty smell of rotten eggs met her nose.  Ick.  She knew it was hydrogen sulfide gas, produced by the rotting reeds, but knowing what it was didn’t help her nose any.  She was looking for a dry patch to put her rucksack down on when she heard a clip-clop noise.  She peered along the path ahead, but the waving reeds prevented her from seeing very far.

“Athena,” whispered Nikki, “what’s that noise?”

Athena gave Fuzz one last whack on the head with her reed, then scurried along the path to Nikki.  She paused to listen.  “I believe it is a horse, Miss.”

Nikki looked down at her worriedly.  “Um, this is kind of an isolated area, Athena.  I mean, there aren’t any people around for miles.  Do you have robbers in the Realm?”

“Robbers, Miss?  A few, maybe, in the larger cities.  But I have never heard of any in the Marsh.  There is no one here to rob.”

“Oh.  Right,” said Nikki, feeling foolish.  “Good point.” 

“It is most likely just a traveler headed for the Isle of Ignorance.  This path through the Marsh cuts miles from the usual journey by road.”  Athena shook clumps of mud off her long skirt.  “We can ask the traveler what the path looks like up ahead.  Sometimes it can get washed out during heavy rains.”

They waited on the path as the clip-clopping drew nearer. 

The reeds rustled, and then a horse and rider appeared.  The horse was a high-stepping bay, with a white star on its nose and a shiny black mane.  The rider wore a full suit of armor.  A bright scarlet plume of feathers sprouted from the top of his helmet.

“Whoah, Daisy my lass.”  The rider reined in his horse and dismounted, his armor creaking.

Nikki and Athena both took a step back from this imposing spectacle, but when the rider raised his visor they felt a bit reassured.  The face looking out at them belonged to an elderly man with a white handlebar mustache and twinkling blue eyes.

He took off his helmet and bowed to them.  “Hello and well met.  What are two such beautiful damsels doing in the midst of this pestilential swamp?”

Athena curtsied.  “We are emissaries of the king, sir.  We are traveling throughout the Realm fighting superstition and ignorance.”

“Fighting superstition and ignorance?  Now that is a noble quest.”  He looked down at them thoughtfully.  “I would that you had visited my own fair village.  For we have experienced the most dastardly, the most cowardly example of vile ignorance and calumny ever seen in the Realm.”

“What’s calumny?” Nikki whispered to Athena.

“It means that someone has spread lies and slander, Miss,” Athena whispered back.

“Yes, madam,” said the knight.  “Lies and slander.  Of the worst sort.”  He let go of the bridle so that his horse could graze on the swamp grass.  “May I take a moment of your time to tell you the details?  For I am sorely troubled and would greatly appreciate advice from the king’s emissaries on the matter.”

Not waiting for an answer, the knight began to pace up and down the path, his armor creaking as he waved his arms in agitation.

“Cows,” he said.  “That is what started it all.  Cows.”  He suddenly stopped pacing.  “My dear ladies, you must forgive my barbaric manners.  I have forgotten to introduce myself.  My name is Sir Cadwan the Capable.  I have a vast estate on the outskirts of the village of Chumley on the Water.  Perhaps you have heard of me?” he asked, his mustache quivering hopefully.

Athena shook her head.

The knight looked disappointed, but rallied quickly.  “No matter.  No matter.  And may I ask your names?”

“Certainly, sir.  My name is Athena.  This is Nikki, a visitor from lands beyond the Realm, and that is Fuzz.”  Athena pointed back down the path, where Fuzz was still engaged in a fight to the death with the mosquito.

Sir Cadwan bowed to Athena and Nikki and glanced rather uncertainly at Fuzz.

“It is an honor and a pleasure, ladies.  Now, where was I?  Oh yes.  Cows.  You see, I have the most beautiful herd of pure white cows.  Lovely little beasts, with big dark eyes and hides as white as moonlight on snow.  They are my pride and joy.  And they produce the most wonderful milk.  Gallons and gallons of it.  Just one of my cows produces more milk each day than twenty ordinary cows.  Now, my neighbor, the dastardly, the cowardly,  . . .”  The knight threw his helmet on the ground and gave it a vicious kick.  It bounced across the path and splashed into a muddy pool, where it promptly sank until only its scarlet feathers could be seen, floating on the murky water.  “. . . the lying blackguard who goes by the name of Sir Sylvester the Sly.  He has had the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to denounce my cows.  To claim that they produce less milk than his own herd.  A herd which consists entirely of mangy, moth-eaten, knock-kneed mongrels.”

The knight’s face turned white, then red, then purple, then back to white again. 

Nikki watched him nervously, hoping he wasn’t going to give himself a heart attack.  She quickly did a mental run-through of the CPR steps she had learned in a class at the YWCA.  Though, how would she do chest compressions on someone who was wearing a suit of armor?

“As if my cows could give less milk than his wretched mongrels!” continued Sir Cadwan.  “Preposterous!  Absurd!  And I told him so, you can be certain of that.  I told him his claims were utter rubbish.  Lies of the highest order.  And then . . . my dear ladies, do you know what he did then?  It is so heinous that I can barely bring myself to utter it.”  He leaned toward Nikki, lowering his voice to a whisper.  “Kittens.”

“Kittens?” asked Nikki, baffled.

The knight nodded vigorously.  “Yes, my dear lady, kittens.  Sir Sylvester implied, he insinuated, he stated outright that I, Sir Cadwan the Capable, a member of the nobility of Chumley on the Water, a land owner, a dairy farmer, one of the most respected and respectable citizens of the Realm, he stated that I eat kittens for breakfast!”

Athena turned pale and gasped. 

Nikki looked down at her in puzzlement.  “That’s certainly an ugly thing for someone to say, but wouldn’t most people just think it’s a joke?”

Athena shook her head.  “No, Miss.  It is no joke.  It is an unforgivable insult.  It is one of the worst things a person in the Realm can say about another.”

“Yes,” said the knight, dejectedly pulling his helmet out of the water.  “When the townspeople of Chumley on the Water heard the foul slander they drove me out of town.  They chased after me, pelting me with rotten eggs, spoiled tomatoes, and turnips.  Fortunately at the time I had been training for the town’s yearly jousting tournament, so I was well protected by my trusty armor.  If I had not been so armored the results would have been grievous.  Those foul turnips were as hard as rocks and would have caused me great injury.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” said Athena.  “It is a horrible thing, to be under suspicion of kitten-eating.  I wish there was something we could do.”

“There is,” said Nikki. 

Athena and the knight both looked at her in surprise.

“There is, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Sure.  This is a classic case of an ad hominem attack.  It’s a very common logical fallacy.  Instead of attacking an opponent’s argument, a person attacks their opponent.”

“I am afraid I do not understand, my lady,” said Sir Cadwan, tipping his helmet upside down to drain the swamp water out of it.  “At no time did Sir Sylvester ever threaten me with fisticuffs.”

“No, no,” said Nikki.  “An ad hominem attack isn’t a fist fight.  It just means that someone you’re arguing with makes personal comments about you, rather than rebutting your argument using evidence and logic.”

“I see, Miss,” said Athena.  “So, we are going to rebut based on evidence?”

“Exactly,” said Nikki.  “All we need to do is count buckets of milk.  Compare the number of buckets your cows produce, Sir Cadwan, versus the number of buckets that Sir Sylvester’s herd produces.”

“That’s eighteen buckets,” said Fuzz, leaning over the pasture railing to watch as Sir Cadwan poured the last bucket of foamy milk into a large wooden vat used for cheese making.  “How many buckets for Sir Sylvester?”

“Three,” said Athena.  “I think Sir Sylvester should have picked another cow from his herd.  I don’t see how this one can be his prize cow.”

Nikki glanced over at the cow in question.  Its hide was rough and ragged, its ears drooped, and as she watched it kicked Sir Sylvester as he tried to milk her.  By contrast, the little white cow Sir Cadwan had chosen for the milking competition was following him around like a puppy, butting her head against him and batting her big brown eyes when he stopped to pet her.

“It looks like the competition is over for the day,” said Nikki, watching as the crowd which had gathered at Sir Cadwan’s pasture started to return to their homes.  “How many days is the competition going to be?”

“Just this one day,” said Athena.

“Really?” asked Nikki in surprise.  “I know that Sir Cadwan’s cow produced a lot more milk today than Sir Sylvester’s, but one day is not really a very good test.  We should run the experiment for a week, at least, and then calculate the average number of buckets produced daily by each cow.”

Athena shook her head.  “No.  I spoke with the mayor of Chumley on the Water.  He says the townspeople are convinced that Sir Cadwan’s cows are superior to Sir Sylvester’s, and that Sir Sylvester was just being spiteful and jealous when he made those remarks about . . .”  Athena lowered her voice to a whisper.  “Kittens.”

“Hmm,” said Nikki.  “I’m glad that the townspeople aren’t throwing turnips at Sir Cadwan anymore, but I don’t think the fact that we convinced them so easily is such a good thing.  We haven’t really produced much evidence yet, and I think they need to realize that.”

“I entirely agree,” said a voice from behind her.

Nikki turned in surprise.  There, leaning against the pasture fence, was the young man in the black tunic.

“Hey, I know you,” said Fuzz.  He climbed up onto the top rung of the fence so that he could look the young man in the eye. 

“Yes, Fuzz,” said Athena.  “We all know him.  He was in Fortuna’s tent.”

Fuzz shook his head.  “No, I don’t mean that.  Yeah, I saw him in the tent, and I thought at the time that he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.”  Fuzz raised a finger and pointed it directly at the young man’s nose.  “I’ve seen you at Castle Cogent.  You were walking in the courtyard near the Salmon fountain, talking to Maleficious.  The two of you looked mighty chummy.”

The young man smiled lazily, flashing blindingly white teeth.  “Chummy would be an overstatement.  I work for the king, which means that I consult from time to time with his advisors.  Since Maleficious is one of the king’s advisors it should come as no surprise that I was seen speaking with him.”  He bowed to Nikki.  “Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Rufius.”

“Er, hi,” said Nikki.  “Um, not to be rude, but what are you doing here?  Did you follow us all the way from the Isle of Ignorance?”

“Follow you?  Certainly not.  Our paths have just managed to cross.  Quite a happy circumstance, in my opinion,” he said, winking at Nikki. 

Nikki looked at him doubtfully, and Fuzz let out a loud snort.  Only Athena seemed completely unsuspicious of him.

“Perhaps, sir,” said Athena, “you would care to accompany us to Sir Cadwan’s manor house?  He has invited us to dinner.  I’m sure one more guest would not be a problem.”

“I would be honored, madam,” said Rufius, bowing low to the imp.  “Please, lead on.”

Turnip stew.  Yick.  Nikki turned the grayish, lumpy mush over with her spoon, hoping to find something edible down at the bottom of the bowl.  Something more edible than turnip stew, at least.

“I must commend you,” said Rufius, buttering a piece of bread.  “The way you convinced the townspeople of Chumley on the Water to drop their attacks on Sir Cadwan was brilliantly handled.”

Nikki frowned.  “Actually, we weren’t very brilliant at all.  In fact, we had barely begun our experiment.  I was really surprised when the townspeople changed their minds about Sir Cadwan so quickly.”

“You forget how what a powerful impression the words ‘king’s emissaries’ can have,” said Rufius.  “You really didn’t need to go to the bother of counting buckets of milk.  Once the townspeople heard you were sent by the king they would have believed anything you chose to tell them.”

“But, that’s terrible,” said Nikki.  “That goes against everything we’re trying to accomplish.  People need to think for themselves, and evaluate arguments based on evidence.  They can’t just blindly accept something just because a king’s emissary tells them to believe it.”

Athena, sitting on a chair piled high with pillows, nodded.  “They are committing the logical fallacy called appeal to authority, Miss.  Just like the people who believed Maleficious when he told them that mismatched socks can cure colds and other illnesses.”  She pulled a piece of parchment out of the pocket of her skirt and unfolded it.  “I have been keeping a list, Miss.  Every time you tell us of another fallacy I write it on my list.  So far I have appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, lack of evidence, and ad hominem.”

Nikki turned pink with embarrassment, but smiled at the imp.  “Yes, that’s exactly right.  These townspeople in Chumley on the Water are committing the fallacy called appeal to authority, with us playing the role of authority.”

“Personally, I don’t see why you’re so bothered,” said Rufius, cleaning his fingernails with the butter knife.  “I’d love it if people thought of me as an authority and treated everything I said as true.”

“Well I don’t love it,” said Nikki, eyeing him with dislike.  She turned to Athena.  “What are we going to do about it?”

Athena shook her head sadly.  “Miss, I don’t think there is much more we can do about it.  We can’t convince everyone we meet of the value of evidence and logic, not right away.”

Nikki nodded reluctantly.  “Small steps.  That’s what my mom always says when she’s doing a really complicated chemistry experiment.  Take small steps and you’ll get results eventually.”

Chapter Six

This or That 

Logical Fallacy:  False Dilemma

“But, why does he have to come with us?” Nikki whispered to Athena.  “He gives me the creeps.”

“What is creeps, Miss?”

“I just mean that I don’t trust him,” said Nikki as she shouldered her rucksack.  They had said their goodbyes to Sir Cadwan and were walking down the cobblestone streets of Chumley on the Water.  Shopkeepers were opening their doors and welcoming the morning’s first customers.  Children on their way to school clustered around a bakery window, jumping up and down in excitement as the baker brought out a steaming batch of cinnamon buns.

Nikki felt her stomach growl as the spicy smell reached her nose.  Sir Cadwan had fed them huge bowls of porridge for breakfast, which Nikki was sure were very nutritious, but which had tasted like wet cardboard.  She started to suggest a brief halt at the bakery, but Athena marched determinedly on.  Nikki sighed and hurried to catch up.  “What do we really know about Rufius anyway?  He says he works for the king, but what if he really works for Maleficious?  Maybe Maleficious sent him to spy on us.”

“Spy on us, Miss?  I think you are being too imaginative.  Rufius seems like a very nice young man.  Very polite, with such clean habits.”  The imp glanced approvingly at Rufius, who was walking a few steps ahead of them.  He was wearing the same black tunic, which never seemed to get wrinkled or spotted.  His dark, wavy hair was perfectly combed, and his sandals were spotless despite the dusty cobblestones.

Nikki looked down at her Westlake Debate Team t-shirt.  It was speckled with mud from the Marsh of Misdirection and bits of turnip from last night’s dinner.  She brushed at it irritably, which only turned the speckles into smudges.

“I don’t trust him either,” said Fuzz, munching on a cherry pastry he had stolen out of the baker’s window.  “When I saw him talking to Maleficious in the castle it looked like Maleficious was giving him instructions.”

“Really?” asked Athena.  “Did you hear what they were saying?  No?  I didn’t think so.  Stop making up stories, Fuzz.  You are as bad as Sir Sylvester the Sly.  Spreading lies and slander.”

Fuzz shrugged and took another bite of his pastry.  Rufius walked calmly on ahead of them, apparently unaware that they were talking about him.

The houses became fewer, and pastures dotted with cows began to appear.  They had reached the edge of town.  Ahead of them was a crossroads, with a hand-painted sign planted in the middle of the dusty track. 

Nikki peered up at the sign.  “The Lonely Lake, 10 miles east.  Muddled Manor, 3 miles northwest.”  She looked down at Athena.

The imp shrugged.  “I have never been in this part of the Realm, Miss.  I will leave the choice up to you.”

“Well,” said Nikki, “I don’t really feel much like walking ten miles.  Let's head for the Manor.”

Muddled Manor was an imposing sight.  An immense and ancient building, generations of owners had added new rooms and wings onto the original structure until its granite walls stretched nearly a quarter mile in all directions like an octopus constantly growing new legs.  Tall columns flanked its many doors, and hundreds of mullioned windows looked out over acres of lawn dotted with oak trees.  Climbing roses in shades of palest pink wound their way up the granite walls.

Nikki came to a halt on the carefully-manicured gravel road which swept in a half-circle up to the manor’s front entrance.  “Yikes,” she said, brushing at her jeans, which had acquired a layer of dust from the road.  “Kind of a fancy looking place, isn’t it?  I feel under-dressed.  Do you think they’ll let us in?”

“Miss, we are the king’s emissaries,” said Athena.  “We are welcome everywhere in the Realm.”

“Yeah, but you said yourself that you’ve never been in this part of the Realm.  We can tell them we come from the king, but will they believe us?”

Rufius cleared his throat.  “I don’t mean to interfere, I mean, I realize that you’ve very generously allowed me to tag along with you, but as it happens I’ve met the current owner of Muddled Manor.  Her name is Lady Ursula, Duchess of Malaprop.  She inherited the manor when her husband died last year.  I attended his funeral.”  He smiled an ingratiating smile, his teeth flashing in the sun like a warning beacon.  “I would be more than happy to introduce you.”

Fuzz frowned up at him, and Nikki regarded him warily, but Athena smiled.  “Thank you, sir,” she said.  “That is very kind of you.  Please, lead on.”

Nikki shook her head as they followed Rufius along the gravel drive.  “I just don’t get it, Athena.  Why do you like this guy so much?  Other than having weirdly clean clothes, I don’t see what you find so appealing.”

“Clean clothes and neat habits are not to be dismissed lightly, Miss,” said the imp as she primly smoothed the skirt of her own spotless dress.  “They are the mark of good character.”

Nikki stared down at her incredulously.  “You like him just because he’s clean?”

Fuzz chuckled.  “Of course she does.  Miss Priss is famous for her love of the well-washed and the carefully ironed.  I keep telling her there are more important things in life, but does she listen?  Not to me.”  He grinned up at Nikki.  “Is there a logical fallacy to cover people who are obsessed with ironing?”

Nikki stuck her tongue out at him.  “No, but we do have a saying in my world:  don't judge a book by its cover.  Even if it's a very clean cover.”

“What lovely long hair you have, my dear,” said Lady Ursula.  She let a lock of Nikki's dark hair slip through her satin-gloved hand.  “When I was your age I grew mine all the way down to my waist.  It was a stunning golden color.  In fact, I believe it was my hair which first attracted my husband.  He always had an eye for beauty.  He used to say that my eyes sparkled brighter than the stars in the heavens and that my blushing cheeks put the roses to shame.  Now, of course, my light is a bit dimmed with age.”  She laughed coquettishly and smoothed her graying pompadour, which was decorated with rosebuds and silver ribbons.

“Not at all, madame,” said Rufius, bowing low and kissing the duchess's hand.  “You still outshine every maiden in the Realm.”

Lady Ursula smiled a satisfied smile and curtsied, her silk gown rustling.  “Thank you, young man.  You are most discerning.  You see with great accuracy what others miss entirely.”

Yikes, thought Nikki.  The cheerleaders back at her high school in Wisconsin were obsessed with their looks, but they were nothing compared to Lady Ursula.  The duchess was the vainest person she'd ever met.

“This is our portrait gallery,” said Lady Ursula, continuing her tour of the manor.  She led them into a long, narrow room with a vaulted ceiling and a parquet floor.  Its walls were covered with oil paintings in fancy gilded frames.  “As you can see, my husband insisted on my sitting for a great many portraits.  All the famous painters in the Realm wanted to paint me.  This one is my favorite.”

She stopped in front of a huge painting which reached all the way to the ceiling.  It depicted a young blonde girl in a pink dress sitting on a swing covered in matching pink roses.  She had pink roses in her hair, a bouquet of pink roses in her hands, and a pink poodle in her lap.  The dog stared grumpily out of the painting, as if it had just bitten the hairdresser who'd dyed it pink.

“Mother, you wanted to see me?” 

They all turned as footsteps echoed along the parquet floor.  A young woman entered the gallery.  Her face bore a slight resemblance to her mother's, with pale skin and large blue eyes.  She had the same long golden hair as the girl in the portrait, but there the resemblance ended.  Where Lady Ursula was all lace, silk, and ribbons, the newcomer was plainly dressed in a grey cotton dress topped by a burlap apron splotched with stains and burns.  Her long hair was tied back in a no-nonsense fashion with a piece of twine.

Lady Ursula winced as she looked at her.  “Gwendolyn, dearest, couldn't you have made the tiniest effort to dress up for our guests?  I had your maid lay out a lovely silk dress with matching slippers for you.”

The young woman sighed.  “I have no time for silk dresses mother, as you well know.  Besides, I'm doing an experiment with sulfuric acid which would destroy silk in seconds.” 

“What kind of experiment?” asked Nikki.

The young woman turned to her in surprise.  “It’s not often that one of my mother’s guests asks about my work.  Are you just being polite, or do you really want to know?”

“Of course she’s just being polite,” said Lady Ursula impatiently.  “Gwendolyn, darling, why don’t you run along now.  I want to show my guests the portrait of me at eighteen.  My beauty was at its height then, and the artist captured it perfectly.”

“Actually,” said Nikki, “I really do want to know.  I’ve done chemistry experiments with sulfuric acid myself, with my mother’s help, of course.”

“This is truly astonishing,” said Gwendolyn.  “As far as I know, I am the only person in the Realm who has attempted this type of experiment.”

“Well, I’m not from the Realm,” said Nikki.  “I’m from another world, where these types of chemistry experiments are quite common.”

“Quite common?” said Gwendolyn, her eyes shining.  “The place you are from must be truly wonderful.  No one here in the Realm shows the slightest interest in my work.  The only type of experiment they care about is the endless attempts to turn lead into gold.  I’ve told them over and over that it can’t be done, but they persist nonetheless.”

Nikki nodded.  “We used to try that sort of thing in our world, centuries ago.  It was called alchemy.  It’s total nonsense.  Fake science.  Once the periodic table of the elements was developed and people started to understand the basics of molecules and atoms, alchemy died out.”

“You must come see my laboratory,” said Gwendolyn, linking arms with Nikki and pulling her away from the group.  “It’s basic, but I’ve collected quite a bit of data . . .”

“Gwendolyn, bring her back at once,” said Lady Ursula, stamping her foot.  “The king’s emissary has no time for your silly foolishness.  And I have many more portraits to show her.”

“Sorry, mother, but this is important,” said Gwendolyn, pulling Nikki toward the door of the gallery.  “I promise I’ll have her back in time for dinner.”

“So, as you can see, when I pour the sulfuric acid onto the sugar, the result is this black material which looks a bit like charcoal.”  Gwendolyn pointed at the glass dish in front of her, which held sugar cubes rapidly turning into sooty black lumps.

“It’s not charcoal,” said Nikki.  “It’s carbon.  Sulfuric acid is hygroscopic, which means that it pulls water from things.  The acid has dehydrated the sugar cubes, pulling all the water out of them.  All that’s left is carbon.  We did this experiment last term, in my chemistry class at school.”

They were in the basement of Muddled Manor, a cavernous room which had been dug straight out of bedrock.  The stone walls were lit by huge standing candelabras, which gave the room the look of an ancient Byzantine church.  Along the walls rough wooden tables held a collection of strangely shaped glassware.

Nikki sniffed the air.  The room was stuffy and smelled strongly of the various chemicals Gwendolyn had used in her experiments.  “You know,” said Nikki, “when the sulfuric acid dehydrates the sugar, it gives off sulfur dioxide.  That’s a very irritating gas.  It can be bad for you if you inhale it, especially in a room like this which doesn’t have good ventilation.  When my class did this experiment we did it under an extractor fan.”

“An extractor fan?” asked Gwendolyn, wiping her hands on a cotton rag she pulled out of her apron pocket.  “What’s that?”

“It’s a device which sucks up gases and expels them from a room.  It vents them to the outside air, or to a containment area if they’re very dangerous.”  Nikki looked around the room at the glass plates and bottles piled haphazardly on the tables.  Many of them showed traces of leftover chemicals.  “I don’t mean to be critical, but you might want to put more effort into your safety procedures.  I get that you’re excited by your discoveries.  I would be too.  I love chemistry.  I want to be a chemist, just like my mom.  But chemistry can be dangerous.  A lot of substances are poisonous if you breathe them, or if they get on your skin.”

Gwendolyn nodded.  “Yes, I know.”  She pushed up her sleeve, exposing a forearm pitted with tiny burns.  “But it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

“Okay,” said Nikki, “but you don’t have to be a martyr about it.”  She gestured at the windowless walls.  “For starters, I’d try doing most of your experiments outdoors in the open air.  That will at least keep your lungs healthier.”

Gwendolyn shook her head.  “My mother has insisted that I confine my work to this basement.  She’s embarrassed by me, and she doesn’t want people to see what I’m doing.  She thinks my experiments are beneath the daughter of a duchess.”  She snorted.  “She says that girls born into noble families have only two options in life:  marry a nobleman or become a lady-in-waiting at the king’s court, sitting around in a fancy dress making small talk with empty-headed courtiers.”

“And is she right?” asked Nikki.  “Do you have only those two options?”

“Actually, no,” said Gwendolyn, frowning down at the plate of carbonized sugar.  “My father left me a substantial amount of money in his will.  Enough to live on for the rest of my life.  So, no, there is really no need for me to marry or to waste my life away at court.”

“False dilemma,” said Nikki.

“Pardon?”

“Your mother’s committing the logical fallacy called a false dilemma.  She’s presenting you with only two options, when in fact there are more than two.  Sometimes people fall into the false dilemma trap by mistake, because they don’t know about the other options, but I’m guessing that’s not the case here.  Your mother must know about the money your father left you.”

Gwendolyn nodded.  ‘Oh, yes, she knows every detail of his will.  And she wasn’t at all happy to learn about his legacy to me.  Now that I have money of my own it takes away some of her control.”  She sighed.  “My mother’s not a bad person, really, she’s just narrow-minded.  She’s leading the aristocratic life that her mother and her grandmother had, and she wants the same for me.  It’s made her happy, having no job, no purpose, and lots of money to spend on clothes and fancy parties.  But, of course, that kind of life would make me miserable.  She just can’t see that.”

Nikki patted her arm.  “Look, I’m not trying to get between you and your mother, but don’t you think it’s time you stood on your own two feet?  I mean, you could move out of the manor, for one thing.  Buy your own place.  I don’t know what the laws are like here.  Are you old enough to do that?”

“Just about,” said Gwendolyn.  “I’m nineteen.  In the Realm, you need to be twenty to own property.”

“Well,” said Nikki, “it seems to me that it’s time you talked to your mother about it.”

“Aack!  Sorry.”  Nikki felt her face turn red as she picked the remains of another cream puff off the carpet.  High tea with the Duchess was turning out to be a dangerous meal.  They were all perched on delicate gilt chairs with embroidered silk backs, balancing cups of tea and small plates piled with slices of apricot cake and assorted pastries.  Nikki fed what was left of the cream puff to a tiny white poodle with a pink satin bow around its neck.  The dog had quickly picked her out as the one most likely to spill, and it had been generously rewarded for its insight.  It had already dined on a carpet selection of apricot frosting, cream filling, and half a chocolate éclair. 

“Not to worry, my dear,” said Lady Ursula.  “This carpet is long overdue for a cleaning anyway.  I declare, I don’t think it’s been cleaned since my great-grandmother was alive.  My housekeeper will see to it.  Don’t give it another thought.  Now, tell me, how is the king faring?  I hope he is taking care of himself.  I don’t know how he manages without me.  When I was at court I used to just dote on him.  He was such a dear.  I was very surprised when he neglected to ask for my hand in marriage.  Well, perhaps when I send Gwendolyn to court he will turn his attentions to her.”

Gwendolyn choked, spilling the contents of her teacup into her lap.  She mopped it up with a cotton rag she pulled out of her apron pocket.  “Mother!  I have no intention of marrying the king.  And I’m sure he has no intention of asking me.”  She looked sideways at Nikki for support.  “And anyway, I’m not going to court.”

“Of course you’re going to court, dear,” said Lady Ursula, delicately biting into a chocolate éclair.  “How else are you going to find a suitable husband?  There are no men in this area of the Realm who are your equal in rank and family background.  If you don’t snag the king himself, then I think the Duke of Syllogia might be acceptable.  He’s one of the king’s closest advisors, after Maleficious, of course.  You’ll be right in the inner circle.”

Gwendolyn took a deep breath.  “I’m not going to court, and I’m not getting married either, mother.”

Lady Ursula stared at her daughter, the chocolate éclair frozen halfway to her mouth.

Rufius, who was sitting close to Lady Ursula, laughed an affected laugh.  “Duchess, I believe your daughter is making a rather poor joke.”

Gwendolyn glared at him.  “I am most certainly not joking.”  She looked imploringly at Lady Ursula.  “Mother, I know this is upsetting for you, and the last thing I want to do is make you unhappy, but I have to live my own life.  I was thinking, I’ll be twenty in a few months.  And there’s this nice little cottage, not far away, which the owner is trying to sell.  I could use some of the money father left me to buy it.”

Lady Ursula unfroze and slowly placed her half-eaten éclair on her plate.  “To buy it?  I’m sure I don’t understand, my dear.  What on earth would you do with a cottage?”

Gwendolyn sighed in exasperation.  “I’d live in it, mother.”

“But, you live here.”

“I’m not going to live here forever, mother.  If I have my own place I can arrange things the way I want them.”  Her eyes took on a dreamy, faraway look.  “The cottage has a big room on the ground floor which will be perfect for my laboratory.  It has lots of windows for ventilation, and there’s a well right outside which I can use for washing my instruments.”

Lady Ursula looked so shocked that Nikki felt a little bit sorry for her.  But just a little.  It really wasn’t her decision, it was Gwendolyn’s, and at nineteen Gwendolyn was certainly old enough to have a say in her own future.  She didn’t really see what Lady Ursula or anyone else could do about it. 

Rufius set down his teacup and took one of Lady Ursula’s gloved hands, patting it gently.  “You know, Duchess, I believe the king is considering changing the laws regarding noblewomen owning property.  Twenty is such a young age for such delicate creatures to be on their own.  I believe he is considering changing the law to age twenty-five.”

Athena, perched on a stack of silk pillows and sipping from a doll-size teacup, looked up at him in surprise.  “I have heard of no such thing, sir.  And, as one of the king’s messengers I am kept informed of any changes in the laws of the Realm, so that I may inform the towns I visit of these changes.”

Rufius smiled down at her patronizingly.  “It’s just a rumor I heard at the last meeting of the king’s Council.  I’m a junior Council Member, you know,” he said to Lady Ursula.

Lady Ursula gave a gasp of admiration and looked Rufius up and down appraisingly.  “My dear boy,” she said, “you wouldn’t happen to be of noble blood, by any chance?  It’s not that I would dream of playing matchmaker, but age-wise you would be such a good fit for . . .”

“Mother!” said Gwendolyn.

Rufius held up his hands in mock protest.  “I am extremely flattered, my Lady, but I am unfortunately not a member of the nobility.  My parents are shopkeepers.  They own a small cheese store in Popularnum.  I owe my position as a member of the Council purely to luck.  One of the king’s closest advisors happens to be very fond of cheddar, and when I was a boy my parents used to send me on delivery trips to the castle.  The advisor took a liking to me and gave me a job as his apprentice.”

Fuzz, who had been lolling on the floor teasing the poodle with bits of apricot cake, glanced up at him suspiciously.  “Which advisor was this, exactly?”

“Maleficious,” said Rufius calmly.

“Hah!” said Fuzz.  “I knew it!”  He rolled to his feet and pointed his finger at Rufius.  “You’re working for that worthless, no good, slimy . . . “

“Fuzz!” said Athena sharply.  “Be quiet.”

“But . . .”

“No, not one more word.  Remember your manners.”  She climbed down from her chair, scattering pillows.  She set down her teacup and carefully stacked the pillows back on the chair before turning to face Lady Ursula.  “My lady, I am afraid we must be going.  We thank you for the hospitality you have shown us.  Come along, Fuzz.”

Fuzz grumbled and threw a disgusted look at Rufius, but followed her out of the room.  Nikki waved apologetically at Gwendolyn and hurried after them.

The three of them were halfway down the manor’s gravel drive when Gwendolyn caught up with them. 

“Wait, please,” she said, her face pink with embarrassment.  “Please don’t think badly of my mother.  She’s not one of those nasty people who think that Maleficious’s deportation of the imps was a good thing.  She was very much against it.  Really.”

Fuzz snorted.  “She didn’t seem to care that Rufius works for Maleficious.  She didn’t exactly kick him out of her house, did she?”

“You have to understand.  Mother’s obsessed with the king and with the doings at court.  When Rufius said he was a member of the king’s Council it pushed everything else out of her head.”

Athena reached up and patted Gwendolyn’s hand.  “It is okay, Miss.  We understand.”  She paused, looking back at Muddled Manor.  “Perhaps you could do something for us, Miss?”

“Yes, of course,” said Gwendolyn.

“We would prefer to continue on our travels without Rufius.  If you could keep him here at the manor for a while that would be very helpful.”

“Of course,” said Gwendolyn.  “I’ll do what I can, though I doubt keeping him here will be a problem.  Now that she knows he’s a member of the king’s Council mother will latch onto him like a barnacle onto a rock.  I’m sure she’s planning all kinds of dinners and parties to introduce him to the neighbors.”

Gwendolyn shook hands with Nikki.  “It’s been so nice to meet you.  You’re the first person I’ve met who’s been interested in my experiments.”

Nikki smiled back at her.  “Remember what I said about that False Dilemma.  Remind your mother that you have more than two options in life.”

Gwendolyn nodded.  “I will.  Good luck with your travels.”  She shook hands with all three of them and walked back to the manor.

“False Dilemma, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Oh,” said Nikki.  “Just another logical fallacy.”

“Yes, Miss,” said Athena, nodding in a business-like manner.  She pulled a quill and a folded scrap of parchment out of her skirt pocket.  “I will add it to the list.  Please explain.”  She looked up at Nikki expectantly.

Nikki blushed.  Having someone write down what she said was a new and embarrassing experience.  “Er, well, a false dilemma is when someone presents you with only two options or choices, when in fact there are more than two.  Sometimes it’s because they don’t know about the other choices, but usually it’s because they’re trying to steer you in a particular direction.  Like, with Gwendolyn, her mother insists she has only two choices for her future:  to marry a nobleman, or to be a lady-in-waiting at the king’s court.  Of course, Gwendolyn could do a lot of other things with her life.  She could get a job, for instance.  Or she could buy that cottage she mentioned and live off of the money her father left her.”

Athena scribbled quickly on her scrap of parchment.  Fuzz, looking bored, started throwing bits of gravel at the windows of Muddled Manor.  They bounced off the window panes with a sharp ping, but didn’t crack the glass.  Fuzz was hunting along the gravel drive for larger rocks to throw when Athena tucked her parchment back into her pocket. 

“Fuzz!  Stop that at once.  We are king’s emissaries, not vandals.”

Fuzz grumbled, but dropped the rock he’d been about to launch. 

“So,” said Nikki, “where to now?”

Athena paused, hands on hips as she surveyed the countryside.  All around them were the fertile green fields belonging to Muddled Manor.  In the distance a river glinted in the sun, and beyond the river rose pine-covered hills, their craggy summits dark and mysterious. 

Athena pointed at the hills.  “If you will take my advice, Miss, I think we should head for the Confounded Castle.  It lies deep within the Haunted Hills.  There are many silly stories about those hills.  People say that ghosts walk the dark lanes there, peering into windows when the moon is full.  These are just silly stories spread by ignorant villagers, of course.  It is time that someone challenged such superstitions.”

Nikki nodded.  “Okay, sounds fine by me.”  She hitched up her rucksack and walked with Athena down the gravel drive.

They had reached the main road when they realized that Fuzz wasn’t with them.  Athena shaded her eyes with her hand and peered back the way they had come.  “Fuzz!” she shouted.  “Hurry up!  What are you dawdling for?”

Fuzz slowly approached, dragging his feet through the gravel, leaving two shallow furrows which stretched all the way back to Muddled Manor.  “I was just thinking,” he said, poking at the ground with his toe and evading their eyes.  “Maybe we should head for the Lonely Lake.  There’s great trout fishing there this time of year.”

“Trout!” said Athena, hands on hips.  “And what do trout have to do with our mission to fight ignorance and superstition throughout the Realm?”

Fuzz shrugged and stared at his feet.

“Fuzz, you are not scared of those silly ghost stories, are you?”

Fuzz shook his head.  “I’m not scared of the stories, just of the ghosts.”

Chapter Seven

Scarecrow

Logical Fallacy:  Straw Man

Nikki yawned as she emerged from the front door of the roadside inn where they had spent the night.  The night had been cold, but now in the early morning the sun was shining and a light breeze carried the scent of pine needles through the inn yard.  A blue jay hopped down from the feathery branches of a hemlock tree and perched on a pile of chopped logs.  The jay gave a sharp trill, as if ordering Nikki to hand over the piece of rye bread smeared with jam which she was eating.  Nikki broke off a small piece of bread and tossed it onto the logs.  The bird snatched it up and flew off in a flash of sky-blue wings. 

The Haunted Hills seemed to Nikki to have been the victim of bad publicity.  Far from the dark and gloomy place she had been imagining, the Hills were actually very pretty, with pine and fir-covered slopes, rushing creeks, and villages full of wooden houses with brightly-colored murals painted above their front doors.

Athena emerged from the inn, daintily wiping her mouth with a tiny lace handkerchief.  “Good morning, Miss.  I hope you slept well.”

“Like a log,” said Nikki.  “It’s all this walking, I think.  I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.”  She stretched her arms over her head and yawned again.  “So, where are we headed today?  You mentioned some kind of castle.”

“Yes, Miss.  The Confounded Castle.  We are in a remote area of the Realm, very far from the king’s court, but even at court we have heard rumors of the Confounded Castle.  It is said that an evil sorcerer lives there, casting spells on anyone who displeases him.  This is nonsense, of course, but I suspect that many of the local people believe these rumors.  Before we left on our travels the king himself asked me to investigate this sorcerer.  So, we will investigate.”

Athena climbed onto the bench underneath the front window of the inn.  Nikki sat down next to her.

“Oh, look, Miss.  How lovely.”  Athena pointed over the treetops at a gap in the clouds.  “A rainbow.”

Nikki nodded.  “Beautiful.”

“My grandmother used to say that rainbows are wishes that have come true,” said Athena.  ‘The wishes float up into the sky and weave the clouds together.  It is a very pretty story, but even as a young girl I was not inclined to believe it.  Do you know what causes rainbows, Miss?”

“Sure,” said Nikki.  “My mom told me when I was a kid.  The water droplets in the clouds act like a prism, breaking up the sunlight into the colors of the visible spectrum of light.”

“What is a prism, Miss?”

“It’s a piece of glass shaped like a triangle.  There was a famous scientist in my world called Isaac Newton who did an experiment which used a prism to split light into its spectrum of colors.”

“You should tell Gwendolyn at Muddled Manor about this Isaac Newton,” said Athena.  “I’m sure she would be very interested in his experiments.  Maybe she could use one of the gateways between our world and yours to visit him.”

Nikki shook her head.  “Not unless your gateways can travel back in time.  Isaac Newton lived hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh, I see,” said Athena.  “No, the gateways cannot travel back in time, Miss.”  She frowned, looking up at the diamond-paned windows of the inn.  “Where is that lazy-boots?  If Fuzz is still in bed I will ask the innkeeper for a pitcher of water and pour it on his lazy head.”  She hopped off the bench and headed toward the door of the inn.

“Um, Athena, before you go, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Yes, Miss?”

“It’s just,” Nikki paused, staring down at her feet.  “Sorry.  I don’t want to interfere in things that are none of my business, but, well, it’s about the imps.  You know, the deportation.  I was just horrified when you told me.  What I mean is, shouldn’t we be trying to do something about it?”

“We are, Miss,” said Athena stoutly.  “You see, the rise in superstition and ignorance throughout the Realm occurred at the same time as the deportation of the imps.  The reason for that is because the same person is behind both things:  Maleficious.  He knows that ignorant and superstitious people will frequently bully those who are different.  Which is exactly what has happened.  The people of the Realm have begun treating the imps as scapegoats, someone to take their frustrations out on.”

“So, by wandering around the Realm, pointing out logical fallacies, we are helping the imps?” asked Nikki rather skeptically.

Athena reached up and patted her hand.  “It is not, of course, quite that simple, Miss.  But please believe me when I say that we are helping.”

“Okay, if you say so,” said Nikki.  “But, what I don’t get is why Maleficious cares about deporting the imps, or about increasing superstition, for that matter.  What does he get out of it?”

“Power, Miss.  He gets power.  Making scapegoats of the imps focuses people’s attention on them, and keeps them from looking too closely at how much control Maleficious has acquired over the king and over the Council.  And increasing superstition and ignorance in the Realm is very useful to him.  Ignorant people are easier to control.  They don’t think for themselves, or ask awkward questions about what Maleficious is up to.”  She tucked her handkerchief into a pocket of her skirt.  “Come, Miss.  Let’s drag Fuzz from his bed and set out for the castle.”

“So that’s Confounded Castle,” said Fuzz, rubbing at his tired, bloodshot eyes.  “Nasty looking pile of stone, isn’t it?” 

Athena eyed him suspiciously.  “Fuzz, what kind of trouble did you get up to last night?  You look like a herd of cows trampled you.”

“I just did a bit of reconnaissance,” said Fuzz.  “You know, got some background, some info, the inside scoop on this sorcerer.”

Athena snorted.  “And where exactly did you do this reconnaissance?”

“Where?  Oh, here and there.  I talked to a few traveling merchants, shared a pipe with the grooms at the main stable yard, maybe poked my head in at a tavern or two.”

Athena rolled her eyes.  “And while you were poking your head in, you just happened to drink a glass of ale or twelve?”

“Twelve!” said Fuzz in mock horror.  “Even I’ve never drunk twelve glasses of ale in one night.  I wonder what would happen if I did?”

“Never mind that,” snapped Athena.  “What did you find out?”

“Well, the locals seem pretty convinced that this guy is the real thing.  Apparently there are a lot of strange goings-on inside this place.”

“Hmm,” said Athena skeptically, eyeing the castle through the branches of the grove of birch trees they were hiding in. 

The castle looked like it had been built over many centuries by many different architects.  At its base was a reed-choked moat full of brackish green water.  Walls of heavy gray stone rose up from the moat.  About twenty feet up this changed to small blocks of golden stone stuck together with chunks of mortar.  At the very top ramparts of reddish brick were crumbling so badly that small pieces broke off as they watched and plinked into the water of the moat.  The castle looked entirely deserted.  No one was manning the ramparts or patrolling the grounds.

“What do you think?” asked Fuzz.  “Should we just go up and knock on the door?”

Athena nodded slowly.  “Yes, that seems best.  I don’t see any obvious signs of danger.  Though, perhaps, Miss, you should wait here.”

Nikki shook her head.  “No, no.  I’ll come too.”

“All right,” said Athena reluctantly, “but stay behind us.  We’ll send Fuzz up to the door first.”

“Thanks,” Fuzz said dryly.  He led the way out of the grove and marched straight up to the moat.  A wooden drawbridge lay over the brackish water.  Athena and Nikki waited as Fuzz crossed the drawbridge, his light footsteps echoing in the still morning air. 

Nikki’s nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of algae and rotting reeds in the moat.  A frog suddenly croaked from amid the reeds, startling them all.  Fuzz jumped and looked behind him.  Athena waved imperiously at him to continue.

Fuzz approached the door of the castle, an immense barricade of oak beams barred with iron.  He was about to rap on it when Nikki suddenly gasped.  With a shaking hand she pointed at a spot high up on the castle wall. 

“What is it, Miss?” asked Athena.

“An eye,” said Nikki, her voice trembling.  “I saw an eye.  Up there, in that arrow slit.”

“Where?” said Fuzz, taking several rapid steps backward.  “I don’t see anything.”

Athena patted Nikki’s hand.  “It was probably just your imagination, Miss.”

Nikki shook her head.  She was sure she’d seen something. 

They all stood there, frozen in place, staring up at the castle walls.  Nikki’s heart thumped in her ears.  Finally Fuzz shook himself and tiptoed up to the door. 

He knocked.

The sound was so tiny that Nikki could barely hear it.

Fuzz tried again, banging on the oak beams with his fist.

A trap door above Fuzz’s head suddenly slammed open.  Fuzz jumped back as a dangling figure dropped down, swinging on a frayed rope.  Fuzz dashed back across the drawbridge.

“What is it?” he gasped.

Nikki took a few steps onto the drawbridge, squinting at the figure.  “It’s a scarecrow, I think.”

The thing swayed in midair, its limbs stiff and its head drooping downward.  Tufts of straw pushed through its ragged clothing.  Its head looked like a hollowed-out watermelon and it wore a hat of woven reeds.  Its hands were made out of birch twigs and they held a spear, crudely fashioned out of a long stick with a sharp rock lashed to the end.

For a long moment nothing happened.  Then suddenly the strange figure jerked its arm back and threw the spear straight at them.  Nikki jumped back as the spear stuck into the wooden drawbridge right where she had been standing.

Athena tugged insistently at Nikki's pants leg.  “Come, Miss.  We are leaving.  Now.”

“But,” said Nikki, still watching the scarecrow, “I thought you wanted to investigate.”

Athena shook her head violently.  “It is too dangerous.  We are going back to the inn, Miss.”

“A scarecrow,” said Nikki thoughtfully, taking a bite of the pretzel the innkeeper's wife had brought her.  It was straight from the oven and brushed with melted butter and bits of rock salt.  “It's a strange choice for the guardian of a castle.  In my world scarecrows are used to scare away birds from planted fields, so that they don't eat the seeds of the crops.”

“Well, that's the point, isn't it?” said Fuzz, wiping flecks of foam off of his whiskers.  He plunked his empty ale glass down on the pitted wooden table top and looked hopefully around the inn’s common room for a refill.  “The scarecrow was meant to scare us off from the castle.  And I'd say it worked.”

Nikki shook her head.  “But, why not use something scarier, like lots of armed guards?  That would keep people away better than one flimsy stick figure stuffed with straw.”

“No it wouldn't,” said Fuzz, giving up on his refill with a sigh.  “People are used to armed guards.  You can see them in the courtyards of every teensy-weensy castle from here to Popularnum.  But that scarecrow.  That was something entirely different.  Out of the ordinary.  And maybe magical.”  He whispered the last word.

Nikki looked at him doubtfully.  “Magical?  Maybe.  But I think there's another explanation.  There was something familiar about that scarecrow.  Something about the way its arm moved.”  She made an experimental throwing motion with her right arm.  “Oh, of course.  Now I remember.  A catapult.  That’s what it reminds me of.  My mom took me to a renaissance fair once, and they had a little model of a medieval catapult.  When the scarecrow threw that spear at me it was exactly the same motion as a catapult.”  She raised her arm as if holding an imaginary spear.  “The fulcrum must have been in the scarecrow’s shoulder.”

“The fulcrum, Miss?” asked Athena, daintily picking at a large bunch of grapes.

Nikki nodded.  “Yeah.  The fulcrum.  A catapult is just a type of lever, and the fulcrum of a lever is the point around which the lever rotates.”

“Huh?” said Fuzz.

“It’s like this,” said Nikki.  She broke off a piece of her pretzel and laid it on the table.  Then she balanced a butter knife across the piece of pretzel like a seesaw.  She put one of Athena’s grapes on the end of the knife, and then banged her fist down on the other end of the knife.  The grape flew through the air, just missing the innkeeper’s wife as she passed by carrying a tray of dirty dishes.

“See?” said Nikki.  “The knife is the lever, the piece of pretzel is the fulcrum, and the grape is the load.  Levers increase force.  In the case of a catapult, it means you can send things flying through the air a lot farther, and with more force.  Someone designed that scarecrow to be a kind of catapult.  Its arm was the lever, its shoulder was the fulcrum, and the spear was the load.  They probably had some kind of string hooked to its arm.  When they pulled the string the arm threw the spear.”

Athena had taken out her bit of parchment and was busily scribbling notes, but Fuzz looked doubtful.  “I didn’t see any string.  That scarecrow looked like it was moving all on its own.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what you were supposed to think,” said Nikki.  “The strings would be carefully hidden.  Kind of like in a magic trick.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all this sorcerer guy is, just a magician using some fancy tricks to scare the locals.”

Fuzz was about to reply, when the door of the common room banged open.  The floor shook and the copper pots hanging above the fireplace rattled as a group of knights in full armor stomped in.  They commandeered a table near the window and yelled loudly to the innkeeper, who hurried over with foaming mugs of ale.

Nikki, Athena, and Fuzz watched curiously as one of the knights held a whispered conversation with the innkeeper.  When the innkeeper rushed by their table on his way to get more ale for the knights Fuzz motioned him over.

“Yes?” said the innkeeper, looking nervously over his shoulder at the knights.

“What’s up, friend?” asked Fuzz.  “Who are all these walking tin cans?”

“Knights of the Order of the Iron Fist,” said the innkeeper in an undertone.

Fuzz snorted.  “Never heard of them.  And why are they here, tromping around like they own the place?”

“They’re going to take on the Sorcerer,” said the innkeeper, his voice shaking as he wiped his sweaty hands on his apron.  “Storm his castle and drive him from the Haunted Hills.”  He hurried away, shaking his head.

“This should be interesting,” said Fuzz, stretching out on a boulder and crossing his arms over his head.

Nikki and Athena perched less comfortably on a rocky outcropping nearby.  Their vantage point on a pine-covered hill overlooking Confounded Castle gave them a clear view of the road leading up to the castle drawbridge.

“Here they come,” said Nikki as a thunder of hooves sounded on the road below.

The company of knights appeared, their armor flashing in the sun, their brightly-colored banners waving.  They reined in their horses in a cloud of dust and dismounted.  Their leader, a tall knight with a purple horsetail sprouting from the top of his helmet, stomped up to the moat and stood surveying the castle walls.

As before, the trapdoor slammed open and down dropped the twisting figure of the scarecrow. 

Several of the knights jumped back, looking like huge tin soldiers about to topple over.  But the leader of the knights slowly drew his sword and stepped onto the drawbridge. 

This time the scarecrow held an axe in its twiggy hands.  It drew its arm back with a frighteningly lifelike motion and hurled the axe straight at the knight.

“How weird,” said Nikki.  “Why on earth did he do that?”

The knight, instead of standing his ground, had jumped sideways and nearly fallen into the slimy green water of the moat.  He righted himself and stood staring at the axe where it stuck, quivering, in the wood of the drawbridge.

“It couldn’t possibly have hurt him,” said Nikki.  “It would have just bounced off his armor.”

“He thinks there’s a spell on it,” said Fuzz.  “See?  He won’t go near it.”

They watched as the knight backed slowly off the drawbridge, giving the axe a wide berth.

The knight returned to his comrades.  They gathered together and held a hasty conference, pointing now and then at the castle walls.

Suddenly Athena gave a tiny shriek.  Fuzz gasped and nearly fell off his boulder.  Nikki called out a warning to the knights, but they didn’t seem to hear her.

Dozens of dark, cloaked figures had suddenly appeared without warning on top of the castle ramparts.  Each held what looked like a large cannonball balanced lightly in its black-gloved hand.  The figures stood in unmoving silence, outlined against the sky.

Nikki looked from the dark figures to the knights, who were still arguing, completely oblivious to this new threat.  “Can’t the knights see them?” she asked.

Athena shook her head.  “It appears they cannot, Miss.”

They watched anxiously as the knights again approached the castle.  This time they moved together as a group, holding their shields in front of them.  The knights seemed to focus straight ahead of them, on the swaying figure of the scarecrow.  None of them looked up at the dark figures on the ramparts.

“Look out!” yelled Nikki. 

The dark figures had raised their arms.  In one swift motion they threw their cannonballs down onto the heads of the knights.

There was a sickening crunch of metal on metal, and one of the knights screamed as a cannonball slammed into his shoulder.  He dropped to the ground, his broken arm hanging uselessly.  Two other knights were knocked unconscious as cannonballs landed on their helmets.  The uninjured knights grabbed their fallen comrades and dragged them back across the drawbridge.  They slung their casualties across their horses and galloped away.

“I’m very sorry your friends got hurt,” said Nikki, nervously approaching the leader of the knights.

The knight glanced up from the blood-spattered helmet he was cleaning.  “Thank you, Miss,” said the knight, looking around the common room of the inn, where his comrades were sprawled across the tables in various states of disrepair.  The innkeeper and his wife scurried about bringing water and bandages.

The leader of the knights sighed.  “I am afraid our quest was a most unsuccessful one.”

Nikki nodded.  “I don’t mean to be critical, but why did you ignore the figures on the ramparts?  They seemed to me a much bigger threat than the scarecrow.  Couldn’t you see them?”

“We saw them quite clearly, Miss.  But they were no threat.  We saw at once that they were mere mortal men, dressed up in fancy garb meant to frighten the local peasants.  No, it was that straw-filled supernatural fiend which posed the most danger.”

“The scarecrow?” Nikki said doubtfully.  “It seems to me by far the weakest point in the castle’s defenses.”

The knight merely smiled a knowing smile and turned back to cleaning his armor.

Nikki joined Fuzz and Athena at an out of the way table in a corner of the room.  “Straw Man,” she said, pulling a grape off the large bunch in front of Athena.

“Pardon, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Straw Man.  It’s a logical fallacy.  It means that you acknowledge only the weakest part of an argument, while ignoring much stronger points.  I admit, we’re not really dealing with an argument here, but the situation just reminds me of the Straw Man fallacy.  It’s a little bit like the False Dilemma fallacy.  Both of them tend to limit your thinking to a small piece of the puzzle.”

“You mean that the knights are fixated on the scarecrow while ignoring the minor problem of cannonballs being dropped on their heads,” said Fuzz sarcastically.

“Yeah,” said Nikki.  “And we were wrong, by the way.  The knights can see the creepy guys with the cannonballs, they just don’t think they’re important.”

“Straw Man,” muttered Athena, scribbling on her piece of parchment.  She looked up.  “So, our dilemma, Miss, is how to make the knights see the bigger picture.”

Nikki nodded.  “Any ideas?”

Fuzz and Athena shook their heads.

“It seems to me,” said Nikki, “that our best plan would be to convince the knights that the scarecrow isn’t magical.”

“You’ll never manage to do that,” said a voice behind them.  “Those dunderheads are as superstitious as the rest of the idiots in the Haunted Hills.”

Nikki and Athena turned in surprise.  Fuzz choked on his ale. 

Rufius stood there, a small mocking smile on his lips.  “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Yes, we do mind, sir,” said Athena with steely politeness. 

Rufius shrugged and helped himself to a piece of bread off of the tray the innkeeper was carrying.  “If you’ll take my advice, you’ll leave the Sorcerer alone.  He’s a friend of mine, and that means he’s also a friend of Maleficious.  You don’t want to end up enemies of every powerful person in the Realm.”

“You forget about the king, sir,” said Athena, her face turning pale with anger.  “We are still his emissaries.”

“Yes, well that doesn’t count for much, these days.  The king’s losing his grip on things, and Maleficious is taking up the slack.  Maleficious will be running the country before long.  And it can’t happen too soon, I say.  The Realm needs some order imposed on it, and he’s just the person to do it.”

“Order,” snorted Fuzz.  “Only power-hungry bullies run around insisting we need more order.  Order is just a code word for pushing people around.”

Rufius flashed a nasty grin at him.  “And you’ll be the first one we push, little man.  So watch yourself.”  He wandered over to the leader of the knights and whispered something in his ear.

The knight looked at him doubtfully, and then slowly stood and came over to their table. 

“Pardon my intrusion, Miss,” said the knight, looking uncomfortable.  “It has come to my attention that certain people in the king’s Council are against you and your companions staying here in the Haunted Hills.”  He glanced over his shoulder at Rufius, who stared back at him, face impassive and arms crossed.  “I have been assigned the unfortunate task of escorting you to the borders.  If you will arise and follow me, please.”

Nikki looked at Fuzz, who was toying with his glass of ale, as if considering the wisdom of throwing it in the knight’s face.  Nikki was relieved when he seemed to think better of it.  Fuzz stood up and left the common room, shoving open the inn’s front door with a bang.

Nikki and Athena followed him out into the inn yard, stepping over a fresh pile of horse droppings.  Nikki grabbed her rucksack from a bench by the door, dodging around the knights’ horses, which were tied to a hitching post in front of the inn.  Five of the knights emerged from the inn and untied their horses.

“If you will mount, Miss,” said the leader of the knights apologetically.  He held the reins of a dark gray horse with black fetlocks.

Nikki looked at him uncertainly and then turned to Fuzz and Athena.  “I don’t know how to ride a horse.  Do I really have to?”

Athena nodded sadly.  “I am afraid so, Miss.  I do not think they will let us argue.  Don’t worry, we will ride with you.”

Nikki sighed and awkwardly climbed into the saddle.  She clutched the saddle horn as the knight swung the imps up to sit behind her.

The leader of the knights mounted his own horse and, keeping a firm grip on the reins of Nikki’s, led the way out of the inn yard.  Four other knights followed silently behind them.

Nikki twisted in the saddle to take a last look at the inn.  Rufius was standing in the doorway.  He waved and made her a mocking little bow.

Chapter Eight

The Wishing Well

Logical Fallacy:  Counting the Hits

“Well, that was humiliating,” said Fuzz, watching the knights as they galloped away back to the Haunted Hills.  “I’ve been escorted out of a few taverns in my time, but I’ve never been kicked out of an entire area of the Realm.”

“Your humiliation, that is nothing,” said Athena snappishly.  “This is very serious.  Citizens of the Realm may travel wherever they wish.  There is no law which says otherwise.  These knights had no right and no authority to do this.”

“I wouldn’t be too hard on the knights,” said Fuzz.  “It was obvious they didn’t really want to haul us to the borders of the Hills.  They were just taking orders from that dirtbag, Rufius.”

“Don’t call people names, Fuzz.  Even if they deserve it.  We must remember that we are the king’s emissaries and that we must conduct ourselves with dignity and good manners at all times.” 

Fuzz snorted and muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Poofius”.  He plopped down on a large rock by the side of the road and surveyed the countryside.

Nikki shaded her eyes with her hand and also peered out at the horizon.  The knights had dropped them at the edge of the Haunted Hills, not far from the road leading back to Muddled Manor.  Nikki thought she could just see the roof of the Manor in the distance.  “Should we head back the way we came?” she asked hopefully.  It would be nice to see Gwendolyn again.  She wanted to learn how Gwendolyn went about conducting experiments without any of the technical equipment Nikki was used to, like microscopes and centrifuges.

Athena shook her head.  “No, Miss.  This business of the knights taking orders from Rufius is very upsetting.  We need to inform the king about it as soon as possible.  We will head back to Castle Cogent by the shortest possible route.”  She pointed to a rutted track which branched off from the main road.  “That is the wagon path to the Lake of Logophobia, if I recall correctly.  I have not traveled it myself, but the king’s Librarian showed me many maps of this area before we set out.  The fishermen from the Lake use this path to transport their fish.  It should be a useful shortcut for us.”

“My feet are killing me,” said Fuzz, hopping on one foot as he tried to rub the sole of his other foot.  “We can’t walk all the way to the Lake of Logophobia without stopping.”

“No, of course not,” said Athena.  “We will rest for the night at the next town.  It is not far ahead.” 

“You’ve been saying that for the last two hours,” grumbled Fuzz.  “Why can’t we have horses?  That’s what I want to know.  We could spend our days riding comfortably in the saddle, and we’d be able to deliver the king’s messages in half the time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Athena.  “You don’t know one end of a horse from the other.  And besides, we imps are proud walkers.  It is our tradition and our heritage.  Why, my grandmother could walk for two days without stopping . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” growled Fuzz.  “Spare me the stories about your blasted grandmother.”

“Not a very welcoming place, is it?” said Fuzz, looking around at the dark buildings of the town they had come to.  He swore under his breath as he tripped over a dog lying in the middle of the road.  The dog yelped and ran off into the darkness.  “What kind of town leaves itself this pitch black at night?  They got something against street lanterns?”

Ramshackle wooden houses lined the banks of a sluggish river.  The croak of frogs and the occasional splash of a fish came from the water.  Behind each house a creaky little pier jutted out into the river, looking ready to collapse from the weight of the next person foolish enough to set foot on the rotting boards.  Many of the houses had missing windowpanes, and a smell of rotting fish came from nets piled on their front porches.

“Definitely not one of the Realm’s glamour spots,” said Fuzz.  “Don’t see any sign of an inn.  Looks like we might be camping in the woods tonight.”

Athena shook her head.  “It is much too cold for sleeping outside.” She put her hands on her hips and peered sternly at the surrounding buildings.  “Surely there is someone here who can give us shelter.”

Nikki peered into the gloom.  “There’s a light over there.  See?  Down at the end of the street.”

They headed toward it.  It turned out to be firelight, blinking redly through the windows of a crooked building which seemed to have been built from scraps of wood scavenged from a lumber yard.  In the dim light they could just make out a sign hanging crookedly above the door.  Painted on the crude wooden sign was a loaf of bread and a foaming glass of ale.

“Must be the town tavern,” said Fuzz.  “Strange that there’s no name on the sign.  Usually they paint it in big letters:  The Boar’s Bottom Inn.  The Pickled Pumpkin.  Or my favorite, The Peevish Pig.”  He pushed open the creaking door.  “Hello?” he called.  “Anyone here?”

“Coming!” shouted a voice from the depths of the building. 

As they stepped inside the door swung shut behind them.  They stood blinking in the dark as heavy steps stomped overhead and descended unseen stairs.

“Come in, come in.  No need to linger by the door.”  A shadow loomed up in the faint firelight.

“Thanks, friend,” said Fuzz.  “If you could just spare a candle to light our way we’d be glad to come in.  As it is, I can barely see my hand in front of my face.  How do you manage to see in such gloom?”

The shadow shrugged.  “My eyes have gotten used to it, I reckon.  We don’t hold much with candles here.  Too expensive by half.  Waste of good gold coin.  Nope, a nice bit of firelight, that’s what we like in the evening.  Come along and warm yourselves.”

The shadow led them through the dark room, toward a flickering red light.  Fuzz swore as he hit his toe on an unseen chair, and Nikki winced as the edge of a table caught her right in the stomach.

“Here we are.  Here we are.  Sit yourselves down.”  The tavern keeper, who turned out to be a pot-bellied man in a stained leather apron, waved at two benches flanking a stone fire pit in the middle of the floor.  One of the benches was already occupied.  Nikki, Fuzz, and Athena sat down and looked curiously at the occupants of the other bench.

The tavern keeper melted back into the darkness without making introductions, so Fuzz did the honors.  “Hello, friends,” he said, pulling off his shoes and stretching his feet out towards the fire.  “I’m called Fuzz, and this is Athena, an emissary of the king, as she will insist I tell you.  And this is Nikki, a visitor to our Realm.”

“Pleased, I’m sure,” said an elderly woman sitting close to the fire, wrapped in layers of woolen shawls.  She rose unsteadily to her feet and curtsied, knees cracking.  “I am Mrs. Belinda Bowers, wife of the late Herman Bowers, former mayor of our lovely village of Little Creektown.  You’ve met Ned Turner.”  She gestured at the dark depths of the building where the tavern keeper had disappeared.  “He is the owner of this establishment, as well as being our temporary mayor.”  She pursed her lips, as if tasting a lemon.  “Of course, we would prefer to have a real mayor.  Someone who would take this town in hand and restore it to the glory it had under my dear departed husband Herman, but unfortunately no one wants the job of mayor.  They think the job too difficult.”  She sniffed.  “Difficult.  Not at all.  It’s not the fault of the job, but of the people.  Young people these days are just bone idle.  Lazy.  They don’t want to do the hard work that leadership demands.”  Having made this little speech, she plopped back down onto the bench and re-adjusted her shawls.

“Howdy,” said a young man whose heavy canvas apron smelled strongly of fish.  “I’m Pete.  Pete Fuller, the town fishmonger, as you can probably smell.  You catch it, I’ll gut it.  That’s my motto.”  He grinned broadly, displaying a mouthful of blackened teeth.  “And this is Jack.”  He jerked his thumb at an old man slumped over a mug of ale.  “Jack’s a bit in his cups, if you take my meaning.  He does like his brew.”

“A man after my own heart,” said Fuzz.  He looked around for the tavern keeper.  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a wee drop?” he asked hopefully.

Pete shook his head.  “Sorry, fella.  Our boy Jack’s had the last drop of it.  The ale barrel is empty and there’s no money to buy a new one.  But don’t you worry, we’re gonna do a Wish tomorrow.  That’ll bring in the coin.”

“Pardon?” asked Fuzz.  “I don’t understand you, friend.”

“A Wish,” said Mrs. Belinda Bowers, as if this explained everything.  “You are all invited, of course.  We don’t get many visitors.  It will be so nice to have some new faces at the Wish.  My dear departed husband Herman would have been so pleased.  The Wish will take place in the morning, bright and early.”

Nikki shivered in the early morning air, her breath making little white puffs of steam.  Frost glazed the puddles in the street and the riverbank was decorated with a rim of lacy ice.  Nikki pulled her woolen cloak out of her rucksack and threw it across her shoulders. 

“It looks like the Wish is starting, Miss,” said Athena from atop her perch on a pile of fishing nets. 

A small group of people paraded slowly down the street toward them, Ned Turner the tavern keeper in the lead.  Mrs. Belinda Bowers followed close on his heels, her white hair and wrinkled face peeking out of a mass of woolen shawls.  Pete the fishmonger kept a hand on her elbow, steadying her when she slid on a patch of ice.  Behind the three leaders straggled thirty people, both adults and children, all wrapped in a mish-mash of old shawls and threadbare, patched coats.

“What is a Wish, exactly?” Nikki whispered to Athena as they joined the end of the procession.

“I do not know, Miss.  I have never heard the term before.  I can only assume it is some local ceremony.  Hopefully a very short ceremony.  We need to continue on our journey.”  She shook her head worriedly.  “The poor king.  I hate to think of him alone in his castle, working himself to the bone to fight the schemes of Maleficious.”

Nikki raised a skeptical eyebrow.  The king had not seemed to her like someone who worked himself to the bone.  No, if Mrs. Belinda Bowers were to meet the king, she might in fact decide he belonged to that group of people who were “bone idle”.

Up ahead, Ned Turner took a sudden turn, leaving the main street of the town to follow a narrow footpath through a grove of aspen trees.  Golden aspen leaves crackled under their feet as they wound their way up a hillside covered with fiddlehead ferns curled up tightly from the cold.  At the top of the hill the path suddenly widened into an open, grassy area bordered by a semi-circle of trees.  A spring bubbled out of the ground and formed a shallow pool edged with gray stones.  The walkers clustered around the spring, making a space for Nikki, Athena, and Fuzz at the edge of the pool.

Nikki craned her neck, peering into the depths of the spring.  The bottom of the pool had a bright golden color, and at first she thought it was just the reflection of the aspen leaves.  But as she looked closer she realized that the entire bottom of the pool was covered with gold coins. Thousands of them.  Nikki gasped, looking from the mounds of gold to the patched and worn clothes of the townspeople.  Why had these obviously poor people dumped all this money in here?  Why didn’t they use it to fix their broken-down houses, or to buy themselves new winter coats?

Fuzz had also noticed the gold.  He knelt down and was about to pull a coin from the water when Athena pounced on him like an angry tabby cat and swatted at his hand.  Fuzz dropped the coin with a sigh.

Ned Turner laid a small sack he’d been carrying down on the ground in front of the pool.  “Friends,” he said, raising his hand for silence.  “It’s a good day for Wishing.  As you know, the roof of the bakery fell in last month, and Mrs. Fallowes don’t have the coin to fix it.  So remember the bakery roof when you make your wish.”  He opened the sack and motioned to Mrs. Belinda Bowers.  “Mrs. B, you first, as usual.  Step right up.”

Mrs. Bowers tottered up to the sack and bent slowly over it with the help of Pete the Fishmonger.  She picked a single gold coin from the sack and stood holding it in her weathered hand.  She muttered over it for a long moment, then tossed it into the depths of the pool.

One by one each member of the group approached the sack, murmured a few words, and tossed a coin into the water.  When the last person had completed their wish Ned Turner picked the empty sack off the ground.  “May all your Wishes come true,” he said in a loud voice.

“May all your Wishes come true,” repeated the group clustered around the pool.  They slowly dispersed, strolling back down the hill in twos and threes.  The children ran ahead, playing tag among the trees.  Pete helped Mrs. Bowers as she tottered away.  “Ned, drop by my cottage for tea,” she called over her shoulder.  “And bring the visitors if they’re so inclined.”

“Will do, Mrs. B,” said Ned Turner.

“Interesting tradition,” said Fuzz, when only he, Nikki, Athena and Ned Turner were left at the pool.

“Isn’t it though?” said Ned.  “Don’t rightly know when it began.  My Granddad used to tell tales about his Granddad going to the Wish, so that would be what, six generations back?  Might go back even farther.  No way to know.  I reckon people have been Wishing for as long as this spring has been here.”

“And does it work?” asked Nikki.

“Work?” asked Ned, looking blank.

“Do your wishes come true?”

“Oh, sure.  Sure they come true.”  Ned stuffed the empty sack into his coat pocket.  “Why, just last winter Mrs. Bowers Wished for another chicken.  She sells the eggs, you see.  And sure enough, only a month after the Wish she found a nice little speckled hen just wandering down the road all by its lonesome.  She scooped it up and tucked it into her chicken coop and now it lays a nice little egg for her, every day.”

“So, every wish comes true?” asked Nikki.

“No, not every wish,” said Ned, smiling down at her jovially.  “Can’t expect that, now can we?  Shouldn’t get greedy now, should we?”

Nikki looked down at the thousands of coins winking from the bottom of the pool.  “Have you ever counted the number of wishes which have come true?” she asked.  “And the number which haven’t come true?”

“Counted?” asked Ned, looking baffled.  “Counted the number of Wishes?”  He started down the hill, chuckling.  “The ideas you visitors come up with.  Very entertaining you are, to be sure.”  He disappeared over the brow of the hill, still chuckling.

“Athena, it’s parchment time,” said Nikki.

“Parchment time, Miss?”  Athena looked baffled for a second, but then nodded and pulled her bit of parchment and a quill out of her pocket.  “Ready, Miss.”

“Counting the hits,” said Nikki.  “It’s a very common logical fallacy.  I think there’s a fancier name for it, but I just call it counting the hits.  It means that someone only notices data which agrees with their opinion, and ignores data which contradicts it.”

Fuzz nodded.  “These people remember when a wish comes true, but they forget all the times when their wishes didn’t come true.”

Nikki sighed, glancing again at the gold at the bottom of the pool.  “I wouldn’t really call it forgetting.  It’s more like denial.  I think the people here know very well that most of their wishes haven’t come true.  They just don’t want to admit it.  They’re very attached to this Wish ceremony.  Emotionally attached, I mean.  It’s a tradition, and all that.”  She bent down and picked a gold coin out of the water.  “I understand why they continue the ceremony:  it’s a tradition handed down from their grandparents and great-grandparents.  But it’s really hurting the town.  You’ve seen how poor they are.  If they used this gold to fix their leaky roofs and buy new winter coats for their kids they’d have much better lives.  Instead it just lays here at the bottom of this pool, going to waste.”  She angrily threw the coin back into the water.

Athena reached up and patted her hand.  “Come, Miss.  Let us find Mrs. Bower’s house and have tea.  We will try to talk to them about the Wish ceremony.  Though, I warn you not to get your hopes up.  Criticizing people’s traditions can be a dangerous thing.”

Nikki and Athena started down the hill.

“Fuzz, get away from that gold!” Athena yelled over her shoulder.

Chapter Nine

Before and After

Logical Fallacy:  Post Hoc

“That little red-haired girl, Katie, she understood, don’t you think?”  Nikki asked Athena.

They were on the road again, after spending a rather frustrating hour sipping weak, watery tea at the cottage of Mrs. Belinda Bowers.

“I think so, Miss.  It is always the children who are most willing to try new things.”

Nikki nodded.  “And Katie asked lots of questions.  That’s always a good sign.  It means she wants to learn.  And she was really excited about my suggestion that they use some of the money in the pool to build a school for the town.”  Nikki frowned, kicking at a pinecone which had fallen from the trees bordering the road.  “I don’t think her mother liked the idea, though.  She nearly yanked Katie’s arm out of its socket when she pulled Katie away from me.”

Athena sighed.  “The adults are afraid, Miss.  They think if they disturb the money in the pool that bad things will happen.  This type of petty superstition is not uncommon in the Realm.  But, I have my list.”  She patted her skirt pocket.  “The list of logical fallacies which you have so kindly provided us.  It will be a great help to us in fighting these superstitions.”

“I hope so,” said Nikki doubtfully.  A list written on a bit of parchment didn’t seem like much of a weapon in the fight against strange traditions like the Wishing Well.  She sighed, feeling that her adventure in the Realm of Reason wasn’t going quite as well as she had first thought.  Her success in getting the people of Popularnum to abandon their expensive lace ruffs seemed a long time ago.  “Perseverance,” she muttered.

“Pardon, Miss?” asked Athena.

“Perseverance,” said Nikki.  “It’s my mother’s favorite word.  She says it’s the most important thing a scientist can have.  When things aren’t going very well you just have to keep trying.  Over and over again.”

“Yes, Miss,” said Athena, nodding decisively.  “We will keep trying.”

“Are you sure this road leads to the Lake of Logophobia?” asked Fuzz, catching up with them after a stop to take care of a bit of personal business behind a tree.  “I had a look at those maps in the king’s library too, and I don’t remember this pine forest.  It wasn’t on the maps.”

“This area of the Realm is not well mapped,” began Athena.  Suddenly she stopped and peered closely at Fuzz.  “Why are you clinking?”

“Clinking?” asked Fuzz innocently. 

Athena crossed her arms.  “How much did you take?”

“Take?” asked Fuzz, avoiding her gaze.

“Fuzz!”

Fuzz sighed and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket.  It was knotted into a little bag.  He untied it and opened it to reveal a little pile of gold coins. 

Athena turned white, then red, then white again. 

Fuzz quickly backed away, stuffing the coins back into his pocket.  “Relax.  No one saw me.  They’ll never miss it.  It’s not like they kept a record of each coin they threw into that pool.”

“That is not the point!” said Athena.  “You are a king’s emissary.  You are not a common thief!”

“Well, not officially,” said Fuzz.  “It’s more of a hobby.”

Athena let out a shriek and threw a pinecone at him.  When she picked up a rock Fuzz scurried out of range. 

“I’ll just scout out the road up ahead,” he shouted back at them, disappearing around a bend.

“Lovely, isn’t it Miss?”

Athena and Nikki stood on the sandy shore of a large lake.  A strong wind whipped the lake into frothy whitecaps, and clouds scudding across the blue sky made patterns of light and shadow on the pine-covered slopes surrounding the lake.  “I often come here when I have a rest from my duties as a king’s emissary.  The lake is only a day’s journey from Castle Cogent.”

Nikki peered up and down the shore, shading her eyes with her hand.  “I don’t see Fuzz anywhere.  I wonder where he’s gone?”

Athena sighed as she washed her hands in the clear water at the edge of the lake.  “There is a favorite tavern of his on the other side.”  She pointed to a small woody finger of land which jutted out into the lake.  “Over there.  There is a path which leads to it.  It follows the edge of the lake.”

“Should we follow him?”

Athena shook her head.  “No, Miss.  It is the long way around.  The shortest way to Castle Cogent is in the other direction.”

“Oh,” said Nikki, a bit disappointed.  She was hungry, and a tavern sounded like it might have food.  In her travels with the imps she’d noticed that they didn’t eat much.  At least, not as much as she did.  But then, she was twice as tall as they were.  Her stomach growled.  “Athena, I could use some lunch.”

“Yes, Miss.  There is a fishing village about a mile down the shore.  We will stop there.  They are famous for their fish stew.”

When their server brought another loaf of freshly baked bread Nikki pounced on it.  She ripped off a piece, slathered it with butter and bit into it hungrily.  Out of politeness to Athena she had tried the fish stew.  She really had.  But it was just so . . .fishy.  Also, there were bits floating in it that look suspiciously like eel.  Nikki shuddered.  She didn’t care if eel was good for you, as Athena had pointed out.  It was eel.  That was plenty of reason not to eat it.

Their splintery wooden table was perched on a rocky ledge overlooking the lake.  Behind them was a tiny fishing shack where a big cast-iron pot full of fish stew was bubbling away.  Most of the shack’s customers were local fishermen who stood in small groups near the shack, eating their fish stew while standing up.  They all wore wide-brimmed straw hats and long waterproof boots. 

In the water below the shack a small huddle of wooden rowboats was tied together, bobbing on the choppy water.  Nikki watched as one of the fishermen stepped from boat to boat as easily as if he was walking on land.  He settled himself into the last boat with his fishing rod and untied the boat from the others.  He pulled on the oars, moving away with surprising speed.  When he reached the middle of the lake he dropped a small anchor overboard with a splash and cast his line into the water.

Athena looked down at the remaining rowboats.  “Look how many things these fishermen keep in their boats.”  She pointed to a boat which was loaded down with boxes full of coal and split logs.  The boat sat so low in the water that water was splashing over its sides and pooling at the bottom of the boat.  “As a child I used to watch fishermen row these boats across the lake loaded down with sheep, kitchen tables, timber for building, whatever the fishermen need to move from one shore to the other.  I was always amazed that the boats didn’t sink.  They sometimes looked too heavy for the water to hold them up.  Do you know what makes the boats float, Miss?”

Nikki nodded, pushing away her bowl of fish stew.  “It’s called displacement.  The boat pushes on the water.  It sort of shoves the water out of the way to make room for itself.  If the density of the boat is less than the density of the water, then the boat floats.”

“What is density, Miss?”

“It’s how much mass an object has compared to its volume.  Mass is kind of like weight.  Think about a rock.  A really small rock can be very heavy.  But something like a feather can be bigger than the rock but be a lot lighter.  So the rock has more density.”

Athena frowned down at the boats.  “But Miss, that boat which is so low in the water has a large pile of coal in its center.  Surely coal is very heavy.  It must have a lot of this density which you are talking about.  It must have more of this density than water.  Why does the coal not sink the boat?”

“Because the coal’s density is spread out.  What I mean is the volume, or the size, of the boat is much bigger than the size of a piece of coal.  If you dropped a piece of coal in the lake it would sink right to the bottom.  But if you put it on a large, light object like a wooden boat its weight is spread out over a larger volume.”

Suddenly a loud, whooping call came from over the water. 

Nikki gasped, dropping the piece of bread she’d been about to bite into.  “What on earth was that?”

Athena pointed at the boat in the middle of the lake.  “Listen,” she said.  “He will call again.”

The second call was even louder.  It echoed over the water like the call of some enormous bird.  Nikki glanced at the fishermen standing around the boiling pot of stew.  None of them paid the noise any attention.

“Why on earth is he making that racket?” asked Nikki. 

“It is the traditional call of the fishermen of the lake,” said Athena.  “Every time they cast their lines into the water they make that call.”

Nikki gaped at her.  “Why?” she finally asked.  “Why would they do anything so dumb?  Surely all that noise scares away the fish.”

Athena nodded.  “Yes, Miss.  You are most likely right.  I do not know the reason for the call.  The fishermen of the Lake of Logophobia have been making that call for as long as I can remember.  It used to frighten me when I heard it as a child.”  She spooned up the last of her fish stew and dabbed at her mouth with her handkerchief.  “Wait here, Miss.  I will bring over a fisherman so we can ask him.”

“Er, okay,” said Nikki uncertainly.  The clusters of fishermen were all talking vigorously among themselves, and they didn’t look like they would welcome an intrusion from an outsider.  Nikki watched anxiously as Athena approached the shack.  She hoped that the fishermen weren’t going to be rude to the tiny imp. 

Athena didn’t seem to share her concern.  She marched right up to the largest group of fishermen and spoke briefly, pointing back at Nikki, who waved nervously.

“Miss, this is Mr. Brooke,” said Athena, leading one of the fishermen up to their table.  “He has been fishing in the Lake of Logophobia for sixty years and knows much about the history of this area.”

The fisherman extended a shaky, gnarled hand to Nikki, who stood and shook hands politely.  She scooted over to make room for him at the table.

Mr. Brooke slowly sat down, resting his arms on the table with a sigh.  “Feels good to sit,” he said.  “Those youngsters always want to rush through their midday meal and get back to the fishing, but when you get to be my age a nice rest after lunch is just the ticket.”  He broke a hunk of bread off the loaf in front of Nikki and gnawed carefully on the crust.  “So, what exactly is it that you ladies wanted to know?”

“Sir,” said Athena, “we are curious about the call which the fishermen make when they cast their lines into the water.  Do you know the origin of this tradition?”

“Oh, sure, sure.  Course I do.  Though, I’m one of the few left nowadays who remember.  Most of these youngsters, they just make the call because their daddy did.  They don’t care about their own history.  The call is just part of the job for them.”  He subsided into low grumbles, casting annoyed looks over his shoulder at the fishing shack.

“That must be very frustrating for you, sir,” said Athena, nodding sympathetically.  “But, what is the reason?”

“Reason?” asked Mr. Brooke blankly.

“The reason for the loud call made before each cast.”

“Oh, right.  Right.”  He swallowed the last of the bread and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  “Well, you see, it’s this way.  Long time ago, during my granddad’s time, this fisherman by the name of Old Jack Rumperton was sitting out in his boat, way out in the middle of the lake where the best fishing usually is, but he was catching nothing.  Not so much as a single minnow.  He was right about in that same spot.”  He pointed at the solitary boat bobbing on the whitecaps in the middle of the lake.

“So Old Jack sat out there all day,” continued Mr. Brooke.  “He sat and sat.  Finally, as the sun was setting, he stands to stretch his legs.  Now Old Jack was not what you’d call a tidy person.  His boat was always a mess of tackle, rope, and various odds and ends.  Anyway, after his stretch he sat back down again without looking where he was aiming.  And, as it happens, he’d left a fishhook lying there on the oar seat.  Course, what happened was that Old Jack plopped straight down on that fishhook.  Now, I can tell you from personal-like experience that sitting on a fishhook is no fun.  No fun at all.  Makes you yell like the dickens.  Which is exactly what Old Jack did.  They say his yell could be heard all the way at the castle of the king, though I wouldn’t take that as the honest truth.  Seems like an exaggeration to me.  But anyway, Old Jack’s line was still in the water, and wouldn’t you know, right after he lets out this ear-splitting yell he has a tug on his line.  He fights and fights and finally reels in the biggest striped bass ever caught in the lake.  That fish was sixty pounds, if it was an ounce.  Fed Old Jack’s family for a week.  So, there’s your reason.  Ever since the days of Old Jack fishermen here have been making a mighty noise before they cast in the hopes of repeating Old Jack’s lucky catch.”

He sighed gustily and rose to his feet.  “Time to get back to my boat.  Work’s never done around here.  Been nice talking to you ladies.”  He shuffled off towards the fishing shack.

Nikki rubbed her forehead and yanked in frustration on a lock of her dark hair.  What was it called again?

“What is it, Miss?” asked Athena in concern.  “Are you ill?”

“No, no.  I’m fine.  It’s just that I can never remember the name of this one.”

“The name of what one, Miss?” 

“The name of this particular logical fallacy.  It’s got a weird, sort of Latin-sounding name.  I want to say fence post, but that’s not right.  Post, post . . . Post Hoc.  That’s it.  Post Hoc.”

Athena pulled out her parchment.  “Post Hoc,” she muttered, scribbling with her quill.  “I do not know what this means, Miss.”

“Yeah, I told you it was a weird name.  I think it actually is Latin.  I don’t know the exact translation, but basically it has to do with before and after.  With causation.”

Athena still looked baffled.

Nikki pointed at the boat out on the lake.  “Old Jack’s yell came right before he caught a huge fish, so he made the really common error of assuming that since his yell came before the catch that his yell caused the catch.”

“Oh, I see, Miss,” said Athena, making a note on her parchment.  “The two things were not related, it was just a coincidence that Mr. Jack caught a large fish so soon after his yell.”

“Exactly.  It was a case of correlation, not causation.  My mom taught me those words.  She made me look them up in the dictionary.  Correlation means that two events occur close to the same time, but that they aren’t really related.  Causation means that one event causes an event which follows it.  As a scientist it’s very bad to mix these two things up.  You’ll mess up all kinds of experiments and come to all sorts of wrong conclusions.”

Athena looked over at the fishing shack.  It was empty now.  All the fishermen had gone back to their boats.  “So, this traditional call that these fishermen have been doing all these years, it is not helping them to catch more fish.”

“No,” said Nikki.  “It’s probably making their job a lot harder.  The fish in this lake are probably just like any other fish:  they’re scared off by loud noises.”

Athena sighed.  “It is sad, Miss.  Sad that the tradition is so harmful.  I have been hearing this call of the fishermen all my life.  It reminds me of childhood trips here to the lake.  I would hate to see the tradition die out.”

“Well,” said Nikki, thinking hard, “maybe it doesn’t have to.  Die out, I mean.  After all, the fishermen here seem to catch fish despite all their yelling.  And the village here doesn’t seem poor, like the one with the Wishing Well was.  These people seem to be doing okay, despite this goofy tradition.  Maybe we should just let this one alone.”

“Do you think so, Miss?” asked Athena hopefully.  “As a king’s emissary, I feel that it is my duty to fight every instance of ignorance and superstition, but as someone who is very fond of this lake, well, I am glad I do not have to interfere.  Just this once.”

Chapter Ten

Plot and Counterplot

"Aren’t we going in the main gate?” asked Nikki, staring up at the tall white marble walls of Castle Cogent glowing brightly in the moonlight.  If Athena was planning on climbing the walls it looked like an impossible task.

“No, Miss,” said Athena.  “This way is quicker.  Plus, I am not eager to encounter the guards at the main gate.  After our problems with Rufius I am very concerned with how things stand in the castle.  Maleficious may have ordered the guards to keep us out.  We must speak with the king at once, and this way leads directly to his chambers.”

The imp led Nikki to a small marble door, only three feet high, hidden behind a cascade of ivy flowing down from the battlements.  Athena pulled the twisting vines of ivy aside and knelt down by the door.  “It is difficult, Miss,” she whispered.  “I have never been this way myself.  It was my mother who taught me its secrets, but that was many years ago.  I am not sure I remember the correct sequence.”  She pressed lightly on several parts of the door and then sat back on her heels, waiting. 

Nothing happened. 

“That was the wrong combination, Miss.  I will try again.”

Nikki looked over her shoulder.  A sound of metal scraping on metal was coming from around a bend in the castle wall.  “Athena,” she whispered, “you’d better hurry.  I think one of those armored guards is coming.”

Athena nodded and ran her hands rapidly over the door, giving a final hard shove.  This time the door opened, swinging silently inwards.  Athena ducked inside and Nikki followed.  The door closed after them as if on hidden springs.  Leading away into darkness was a rock-walled tunnel obviously carved for use by imps.  Athena could walk upright, but the ceiling was so low that Nikki was forced to walk in a knee-trembling stoop. 

“Is it much farther?” Nikki gasped after stumbling through what seemed like miles of darkness.  She fell to her hands and knees.  She heard Athena scramble back to her in the darkness.

“We are almost through the tunnel, Miss.  Up ahead is a stair which winds around and around.  It leads to the king’s chambers.”

Nikki sat with her back against the wall, rubbing her knees.  Climbing up a stone staircase on your hands and knees was no joke.  “Where are we?” she whispered.

“In a closet, Miss,” said Athena in her ear.  “It is used for hanging the cloaks of visitors to the king.  The closet opens to a small waiting room, but I think we should stay in here until the king comes in.  I will listen.”

The closet was faintly lit by a sliver of light coming in under the door.  Athena crawled to the door and pressed her ear to it.  Nikki rubbed her nose, trying not to sneeze from the dust layering the floor.  She wondered where Fuzz was.  Athena had seemed content to leave him at his favorite tavern on the shore of the Lake of Logophobia, but Nikki wished he was here with them.  All this crawling about in hidden tunnels to avoid the castle guards was making her nervous, and Fuzz seemed like a good person to have around when it looked like you were about to get in trouble.

Suddenly, loud voices and a thump of metal-shod feet rattled the closet door.  Athena scurried away from the door and urgently waved Nikki back toward the dark entrance to the stone staircase.

Before Nikki could move the closet door was thrown open with a crash.  Nikki and Athena squinted as torchlight shone in their faces.  Nikki felt a gloved hand grasp her arm and drag her from the closet. 

Maleficious stood there, a mocking smile on his face, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his dark robe.  Nikki thought he looked like a giant raven about to gobble up a couple of sparrows.

Athena glared up at him.  “I insist that you release us, sir.  We are king’s emissaries.”

Maleficious raised an eyebrow.  “And why, may I ask, are king’s emissaries hiding in a closet?”

Nikki heard a small chuckle.  She peered around the armored guard who was holding her arm.  Rufius was leaning against the wall of the waiting room.  He winked at her.

“A more important question,” said Rufius, “would be why are there only two king’s emissaries hiding in the closet.”  He came forward and bent down until he was nose to nose with Athena.  “Where is your ale-swilling friend?”

Athena eyed him frostily.  “Most likely he is on his way right now to tell the king of your plots and schemes.  The king will be very angry.  He may even have you banished from the Realm.”

Rufius laughed.  “Oh, I doubt it.  For one thing, the king is not aware of our plots and schemes, as you call them.  For another, he is far away, at his palace on the south coast.  We convinced him that he needed a rest from his duties, and I have to say that he wasn’t very hard to convince.  Such a lazy, pleasure-loving monarch is very convenient, I must say.”

Maleficious motioned to the guards.  “Take them down to the dungeon.  And post a guard in front of their cell.  We don’t want our guests disappearing before their trial.”

Nikki shivered.  Dungeons and trials were more than she had bargained for.  Her adventure in the Realm of Reason was beginning to seem more like a nightmare.

End of Book One

Nikki’s adventures in the Realm of Reason continue in Book Two:  Castles and Chemistry.

Chapter One

Escape from the Dungeon

Nikki didn’t know which was worse, the cold or the cockroaches.  She rubbed her arms and jogged in place on the dirty straw littering the floor of the cell, trying to ignore the crunching sound every time she stepped on a roach.  The guards had taken her rucksack and her nice warm woolen cloak.  Her jeans and her Westlake Debate Team t-shirt were not warm enough for the bone-chilling cold of Castle Cogent’s dungeon.  She did some quick jumping-jacks, her breath making puffs of white mist in the damp air of the cell.

“Miss, what are you doing?”  Athena was seated on a creaky wooden bunk which was bolted to the stone wall of the cell.  The skirt of her gray woolen dress was tucked neatly around her, and she sat firmly upright, as if to declare that no prison cell could bend either her back or her spirit.

“Jumping-jacks,” said Nikki breathlessly.  “Trying to warm up.”

“I see,” said Athena, staring up at Nikki unhappily.  “I am sorry you are cold, Miss.  I feel responsible for getting you into this trouble.”

“She always feels responsible for everything.  Personally, I think the best approach to life is to feel responsible for nothing at all.”

“Fuzz!”  Nikki stopped her jumping-jacks and peered through the rusty bars of the cell.  Fuzz was standing outside in the torch-lit corridor, his neatly-trimmed goatee and embroidered waistcoat making him look more respectable than he actually was.  A heavy ring of keys rattled in his hand.  He waved at her.

Athena hopped off the bunk and rushed up to the bars.  “Fuzz!  Where have you been?  We have been locked up here in this nasty, unpleasant place all night.  Get us out immediately.”

Fuzz grinned.  “It’s nice to see you, too.”  He examined the keys he was holding.  “I think it’s this big one.”  He tried the key in the door of the cell, muttering under his breath as it stuck in the rusty lock.  Finally, with a loud clank which echoed through the dungeon, the door opened.

Nikki and Athena hurried out into the corridor, watching as Fuzz re-locked the cell door.

“Might slow ‘em down a little,” he said.  “They’ll waste time wondering if you vanished in a puff of smoke.”  He pointed into the darkness.  “This way.”

Nikki and Athena followed him, tip-toeing carefully along the damp stone floor.  Fuzz strode ahead, swinging the key ring and whistling.

“Fuzz!” hissed Athena.  “Stop making so much noise!”

Fuzz waved a careless hand at her.  “Everyone’s asleep.  They wouldn’t hear it if you shot a cannon off next to their ear.”

“Why are they all asleep?” asked Nikki.

Fuzz grinned up at her.  “I might have put a little something in the guards’ ale cask.”

“What kind of something?” Athena asked suspiciously. 

“Don’t worry,” said Fuzz.  “It’s harmless.  Just a little valerian root.  Okay, maybe a lot of valerian root.  Enough to knock out a horse, actually.”  Fuzz paused, scratching his chin and peering up and down the dark corridor.  A smoky torch set high up in a metal bracket threw flickering shadows along the walls.

Nikki blinked as the smoke stung her eyes.  She squinted worriedly in the direction Fuzz was staring.  She hoped the imp knew what he was doing.  Getting lost in the maze of dark corridors was not appealing. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Athena.  “Fuzz, if you have gotten us lost already . . .”

“No, no,” said Fuzz.  “I’m not lost.  Well, not exactly.  Though, I admit, I can’t quite remember which of these to take.”  He pointed at two corridors which branched off from the one they were in.  They both stretched away into darkness, filled with smoke from guttering torches.  A thin stream of smelly water ran along the floor of the left-hand corridor.  Fuzz muttered something under his breath, his hands making gestures which looked suspiciously like Rock-Paper-Scissors.  “We’ll take this one.”  He turned down the left-hand corridor.

Nikki followed reluctantly, wishing he’d chosen the other way.  The smell from the stream of water was getting worse, and she had the nasty feeling that it was sewage runoff.  The sanitary conditions in Castle Cogent’s dungeons were definitely not state of the art.  She was concentrating on not stepping in the water, when she stopped suddenly.

Athena bumped into her legs.  “Miss, what is it?”

“Listen,” said Nikki. 

They all paused.  Up ahead in the darkness a strange mewling sound echoed along the stone walls.

“What’s that?” whispered Fuzz, his voice shaking.  “It’s not a ghost, is it?  I mean, you know me.  I’m not afraid of anything. Still, I say if we can avoid a ghost we should avoid a ghost.  That’s just common sense.  Let’s go back and try the other way.  Leave the ghost in peace.  That’s just common politeness.”

“Oh, stop babbling, Fuzz,” said Athena irritably.  “You and your ghosts.  I’ve told you time and again that there are no such things as ghosts, but do you listen?  Never.”

“How do you know there aren’t ghosts?” asked Fuzz, inching backwards.  “Can you prove there aren’t?  I don’t think so.”

“She doesn’t have to,” said Nikki.  “That’s basic logic.  You can’t prove a negative.  The burden of proof is always on the person stating the positive side of the argument.  If you say there are ghosts, then it’s up to you to prove that they exist.”

Fuzz let out a high-pitched splutter of fear.  “Logic!  Proof!  Why are we standing here having a discussion about logic when an angry ghost is about to swoop down on me and eat my ears?”  He covered his ears with both hands and put his back to the slimy stone wall.

Athena sighed and pulled his hands away from his head.  “Fuzz, you are making us imps look like fools.  Stop this ghost nonsense at once.”  She squared her shoulders.  “I will investigate this noise, which I am sure is harmless.”

She strode forward, Nikki following close behind.  The mewling grew louder, echoing along the corridor.

“It sounds like an animal,” said Nikki, squinting into the darkness.  She bent down near a large crack in the stone wall and peered inside.  “The noise is coming from here, but it’s too dark to see what’s making it.” 

“Be careful, Miss,” said Athena.

Nikki nodded.  “Athena, let me borrow one of your shoes.”

“My shoes, Miss?”

“Yeah, I don’t think one of mine will fit in the crack.”

Athena handed over a tiny leather boot with old-fashioned laces.  Nikki poked it cautiously into the crack in the wall. 

The mewling sound suddenly stopped and a tiny white paw darted out of the crack and swiped at the boot.

Nikki laughed.  “It’s a kitten.”  She pulled one of the laces out of Athena’s boot and dangled it in front of the crack.  The tiny white paw batted ferociously at the shoelace, then just as quickly withdrew.  Nikki waited, frozen in a crouch against the wall.  Suddenly a furry little body darted out of the crack and pounced on the shoelace, pulling it from Nikki’s hand.

Nikki scooped up the kitten, feeling needle-sharp claws dig into her arm.  “Ouch, you little rascal.  Stop that.”

The kitten gazed up at her curiously, the white spot on its nose glowing in the light from the torches.  Its eyes were blue, and its fur was gray except for two white socks on its front paws.  It suddenly gave a huge yawn and curled up contentedly in the crook of Nikki's arm. 

“It appears to like you, Miss,” said Athena, lacing up her boot. 

“Yeah, he, oops, it's a she.  She does seem to like me.  Or she just likes having someone carry her around.  Must be nice, having a little nap while someone else does all the work.”  She gently scratched the kitten under the chin.  The purr which shook its tiny body vibrated up and down her arm.  It was very comforting, and made the cold, dark dungeon seem a bit less scary.

“Cute,” said Fuzz, standing on his toes to peer at the kitten.  “It was probably left down here to catch rats.”

Nikki gasped.  “That’s terrible.”

Fuzz shrugged.  “Best way to keep the rat population down.  Get a cat.  Everyone knows that.  Now come on.  Put it back and let’s get out of here.”

Nikki looked down at the purring kitten.  “We can’t just leave her down here.  It’s awful.  Dark and cold and damp.  She’ll get sick and die.”  She tucked the kitten more tightly into her elbow.  “Let’s at least get her out of the dungeon.”

Fuzz shook his head, but didn’t object.  He led them on through what seemed miles and miles of dark corridors which smelled of mold and worse things.  Every so often he would motion them to a halt as he explored a side-tunnel. 

During one of these halts Nikki put the kitten down on the ground and watched it play with its tail.  She gently rolled it over onto its back and scratched its tummy.  “She needs a name.  I think I’ll call her Cation.  It suits her, don’t you think?”

Athena looked at her doubtfully.  “You shouldn’t get too attached to it, Miss.  You’ll only be sadder when you have to leave it behind once we get out of this dungeon.”

“Well,” said Nikki, “I was thinking, why do we need to leave her behind?  Why not take her with us?  The next town we stop at, I can buy another rucksack and she can ride in it.  She won’t be any trouble.”

“But, Miss, what about when you go back to your own world?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll have to leave her behind when that happens, but until then it’ll be fun to have her along.”  She picked up the kitten and looked into its blue eyes.  “What do you think, Cation?  Do you want to come with us?  We’re going to have lots of adventures.”

The kitten mewed and swiped at Nikki’s dark hair with one of her white-socked paws.

Athena smiled at them indulgently.  “I have no objections, Miss.  But, that is a strange name.  Cation.  Is it a common name in your world?”

Nikki shook her head.  “No.  It’s a positive ion.  An atom which has lost one or more electrons.”

Athena patted the pockets of her long woolen dress.  “The guards took my parchment, Miss, when they put us in the cell.  My lovely list of all the logical fallacies you told us about is gone, probably used by some nasty prison guard to wipe his muddy boots.  I must get more parchment.  These ions and atoms sound important.  I should write this information down, but in the meantime I will try to remember.  Now, what is an atom?” She looked up at Nikki, her expression resembling a polite but persistent reporter.

Nikki could feel her cheeks turning red in the darkness.  She still wasn't used to the imp’s habit of writing down everything she said.  “Um, an atom is something very small, too small to see.  Everything in the universe is made of atoms.  And each atom has a center, called a nucleus.  The nucleus has even tinier things called electrons circling around it.  I’m not explaining it very well.  If we get out of here, and you find some more parchment, I’ll draw you a picture.”

Fuzz reappeared suddenly, his head popping out of a dark side-tunnel like a ghostly jack-in-the-box.  Startled, the kitten clawed her way up Nikki's leg, her claws piercing Nikki's jeans.

“Ouch.  Cation, you have to stop scratching me like that.”  Nikki waved her finger at the kitten, who promptly batted at it with her claws, drawing blood.  Nikki sighed.  “First thing I'm going to do when we get out of here is find some string for you to play with.”

Fuzz waved at her impatiently.  “Never mind the cat.  Smell that?”  He sniffed the air.  “It's bacon frying.  We're close to the kitchens.  They're in the basement of the castle.  All we need to do is follow the smell and we'll be out of here.  And while we're passing through the kitchens we can grab a snack to take with us.  All this rescuing people from dungeons has made me hungry enough to eat a bat.  Or a cat,” he said, giving Cation a wicked grin. 

Cation, who had curled up in the crook of Nikki's arm again, yawned widely and ignored him.

Castles and Chemistry will be available from Amazon in 2012

Post Hoc Publishing

Boston, Massachusetts  USA 

Other books by Kris Langman

The Danger Next Door

The Gostynin Shul