“We can tell you all about Xanth,” Dolph said.
“But we need to travel on, to catch up with the Zombie Master,” Dor said.
“Perhaps if you can tell me how those delightful twin girls are doing.”
“They’re both eighteen, and very pretty,” Dolph said.
“Well, yes. I believe they will be that age as long as they remain in the place they are. Did they manage to solve the faun’s problem?”
“Faun?” Dolph asked, perplexed. She had mentioned a faun before.
“Last year Forrest Faun passed by here, with Mare Imbrium and the twin girls. I think they were taking rather a shine to him.”
Dolph looked at the others, who were similarly blank. “I guess we don’t know that faun. But we know that Mare Imbri became a tree nymph and is happy. And Dawn and Eve seem to have boyfriends now.”
Ida smiled. “I think you have answered my question. Now I will tell you what I learned about Torus. On that world, the giving of favors does not change a person’s size, but incurs a burden of emotion. The giver comes to like or even love the recipient. So you will want to be very careful.”
“That is a good caution,” Dor said. “We shall be careful, even if this is a dream.”
“I think you would not care to be bound into love with a dream figure you hardly knew.”
“Agreed,” Dor said. “Especially since we are all married.”
“I understand that my analog on Torus lives on an island in a lake, much as I do.”
“He probably went to her,” Dolph said. “Because he’s looking for a zombie world.”
“Yes. I hope he finds it.”
Then they linked hands and focused on Torus. Soon they were flying toward it, seeing its geography. It was weird, because its mountains and lakes and forests and fields wrapped all around it, even on the side facing inward. It seemed to Dolph that it must be really odd living there, and being able to look up beyond the sky and see the rest of that world.
Dor turned to Dolph. “Maybe we can simplify things, if you become a roc now, and fly across instead of landing.”
“Great idea! Grab onto my feet.” Dolph changed, and they clung to his feet. He leveled out as he approached the surface, peering down to search for the glowing footprints.
Soon he saw them, and followed them immediately to a lake, and an island. Just like that, they had found the place.
But he also saw another faint stirring, as if something watching them while trying to remain hidden. Yet how could anything be following them from world to world? Dolph pumped his wings and flew faster, to make sure to leave it well behind.
He landed before a nice little house with a pleasant garden. The others got off his feet, and he changed back to human form.
The footprints led up to the house.
Ida came out. Her moon was a little cone. “What, more visitors?” she inquired.
“We are looking for Jonathan, the Zombie Master,” Dor said. “We are from his world, and need to talk to him. We believe he has gone on to Cone.”
“He has,” she agreed. “He promised to tell me about it, when he returns.”
“May we have your permission to go there too?”
“Oh, I don’t own Cone! I am merely its location. Why don’t you just go there, without exchanging any favors with me?”
“That may be best,” Dor agreed.
The linked hands again, and focused on Cone. In half a moment they were on their way, becoming small, falling toward it. They were getting better at this.
Dolph assumed the roc bird form, and carried the others on his feet while he searched for the trail. Soon enough he spied it.
But he couldn’t follow it from the air, because it disappeared beneath a dense forest. So he came down for a landing at the edge of that forest. Soon the three of them were afoot again.
The trees were huge. They stared up, awed. The trunks gnarled upward, intersecting each other, sometimes spiraling around each other, forming dense knots of wood halfway between the ground and the distant crowns. And on these knots were houses. It seemed that the natives were tree dwellers.
A creature spied them and flew down. It looked like a dragon, but it had feathery wings like those of a harpy, and the head of a goblin. It landed nearby and stared at them. “Who the ⵠⵠⵠⵠ are you?” it demanded.
Dolph bristled. He assumed the form of a sphinx, because it was larger than the challenger and could also speak with a human voice. “Who wants to know?”
This evidently impressed the creature, for its tone moderated. “I am Drarplin, a dragon-harpy-goblin crossbreed.”
“You must be very unusual.”
“No, I’m ordinary. We are all crossbreeds here. So pay up.”
“Pay what?”
“The thumb tax, of course. One blurse for each thumb.”
“Blurse?”
“Don’t you know anything? A blessing-curse. Blurse. Something useful that still sticks you with its point. If you want to enter this forest, all of you must pay.”
Dolph looked at Dor and Bink. “We have six thumbs between us. How many blurses do we have?”
“Burn his wings off so he can grow clean new ones,” a rock said.
“That’s one,” Drarplin agreed.
“It is? I mean, for sure.” Dolph knew that his strength was in form changing, not brains, but he was finally catching on. Blessings and curses combined. Wishes that did good and ill together.
“That’s an interesting unit of currency,” Dor remarked.
“Who asked you, royal blockhead?” another rock asked.
“That’s another,” Drarplin agreed. “Royalty and stupidity combined.”
This was getting easier, thanks to Dor’s talent. “Go stifle in a bed of sweet roses,” Dolph said. “Go soak your head until it swells into real beauty. Find a really pretty girl who hates you. And collect so many thumb taxes that you can’t sit down for a week.”
“Three, four, five, six,” Drarplin said, counting on his toes. “Very well, you may enter Evil Prime Forest.” He spread his wings and flew away.
They followed the prints into the forest. The forest Evil Prime closed over and around them. It got so thick that they couldn’t see the way through, despite the footprints.
“We can’t pass,” Dor complained, wedging ahead.
“Can,” a voice came.
“Can’t can’t,” a half buried stone retorted.
A long vine dangled down before them. It sprouted many legs instead of leaves, and the legs began to dance. “Can can,” it sang. And the way opened up somewhat.
“A chorus vine,” Bink said, recognizing the species. “Thank you, vine; you have nice legs.”
The vine turned from green to red. It appreciated being appreciated.
But soon the way became impassable. The glowing footprints disappeared; they had lost the way.
Dolph looked up. “There seems to be space higher up,” he said. “Maybe I can fly us through.”
“There’s no room for a roc bird here,” Dor pointed out.
Dolph considered. “Maybe there is room for a small one. I’ll become a midget roc.” He did so, and there did seem to be just enough room for his wings if he chose his route carefully. He was still a pretty big bird.
The others got on his feet, and he flew up. They seemed much heavier, but he realized that was because he was so much smaller. It was all he could do to stay airborne.
He made it through the labyrinth of the levels of the forest, and out the other side. And almost stalled out.
The world had ended.
Then he realized that it was merely the rim of Cone. The forest filled in right up to it, and halted at the end, where the world turned inside.
And inside was filled with a vast sea. It stretched all the way across the interior of Cone, filling it. The water took off at right angles to the rim, and as he flew over it, this became the level surface. There was no problem of orientation of the kind they had encountered on
Pyramid; when they turned the rim of Cone, gravity turned too.
He rounded the corner and flew low over the water. All around the great circular rim he saw a flurry of activity. Apparently visiting the shore was great sport for the inhabitants.
Sport? Suddenly he realized that the activity consisted of couples summoning storks. Right in the open, splashing in the fringe of the water, in sight of all the other couples. There were children watching too. Apparently the process wasn’t secret, on this world. Could there be a special license right by the shore?
He flew back the way he had come, peering closely. He could see the footprints emerging from the forest—who knew what route the Zombie Master had taken!—and going into the water. So flying over this tilted sea was pointless; they needed to get below the surface. Could they do that? How would they breathe?
He glided down and made a landing on the water. He gave the others time to get free, then changed into a sea serpent. He held out his flippers so as to support them, so the three of them could consult.
“Those prints go down the inside wall of the cone,” Dor said. “That’s where we’ll have to go.
“Hisss,” Dolph said.
“How will we breathe?” the surface of the water translated helpfully. Of course Dolph himself could breathe, because he had gills, but the others couldn’t change form.
Dor considered. “Since this is a dream, we may be able to breathe under water. Evidently the Zombie Master did. Let’s try it.”
The two men put their faces in the water and breathed. Sure enough, they had no trouble. It would have been a different story, had they been real, but dreams had special privileges.
Dolph put his head under. Dor faced him. “You might as well carry us down, however; it will be faster than walking. We don’t know how far the Zombie Master went.”
So they clung to his fins while Dolph carefully dived below. He found the flowing prints, and followed them. He saw that there were creatures living along the cone wall, and they had houses and gardens and paths. For them, that was level ground, though it was actually at right angles to the upper surface of the sea and opposite to the outside surface they had first landed on. So Cone had its own rules of orientation, different from those of the other worlds.
The prints seemed to be heading down toward the very conic inside tip of Cone. Dolph increased his speed, making the trail a blur. In that manner he passed hills and vales and mountains, all populated by assorted creatures. This seemed to be a world of crossbreeds, so that the dragon-harpy-goblin was indeed typical. There was no counting the number of combinations there seemed to be; apparently any creature joined with any other, and the stork delivered constantly changing combinations.
That made him pause. Did Cone even have storks? It might have some other means of delivering babies. Maybe it had a different Adult Conspiracy to conceal the details. That was an interesting notion. He remembered when he had married Electra, and neither of them had known the secret of stork signaling. What a night they had had! By the time they figured it out, he had realized that he loved Electra, and no longer wanted to marry lovely Nada Naga. He had been satisfied ever since; Electra had turned out to be the perfect wife for him.
At last they neared the inner tip of Cone. And there where the conic surface of this world came together in a point, was a house. The prints led up to it.
They stopped outside it, and Dolph resumed manform. They were right: he had no trouble breathing without his gills.
The door opened, and Ida emerged. She looked forty; apparently their ages were fixed by that of the Ida on Ptero, whose age changed with her geography. Dor suspected that would be disquieting, not to have control of one’s age.
But there was something wrong with her. After a moment Dolph figured it out: her body was human, but she had the head of a horse. She was a crossbreed, like all the natives of this world. But it had to be her, because there was a moon orbiting her head.
Dor stepped forward. “We are visitors from Xanth, several levels down. We are looking for the Zombie Master.”
“Why yes, he did pass this way, two hours ago,” she said. “He went on to Dumbbell.” Her equine mouth seemed to have no trouble speaking. She had delicate gills in her neck.
“To stupid?” Dor asked somewhat blankly.
“My moon,” she explained, angling her head to show it. It was a tiny object in the shape of a dumbbell.
“Would it be all right with you if we just went right on there? We need to talk to him and return to our own world.”
“We are actually dreaming this,” Bink explained.
“Of course. I can see that you are not crossbreeds, and that you breathe without gills. Straight species are very rare on Cone.” She paused. “But I wonder whether I might ask a favor of you, before you go on.”
“Oh, is this a world where favors carry burdens?” Dolph asked, intrigued.
“No, not at all. It’s just that recently a misfit begged my help, and I thought it possible that you might be able to assist.”
“What is it?” Dolph asked. He knew they needed to keep moving, but he was curious.
“On this world, folk live either on the outside, or the inside,” Ida said. “This is the inside, under the water. Our magic is so construed that only couples that straddle the two environments can summon the storkfish.”
Dolph nodded. That explained all that activity at the edge of the water. Land folk making trysts with sea folk.
“In each case, babies are delivered to the couples. If the baby has lungs, it goes with the land parent. If it has gills, it goes with the sea parent. But on rare occasion there is an error. That is the cause of my concern.”
“But suppose the parents aren’t together when the baby arrives?”
Ida looked blank. “Not together?”
“In nine months, they could lose track and be far apart.”
“Nine months?”
“The time it takes the stork to deliver.”
Ida shook her head. “There must be considerable bureaucratic delay in your realm. Here delivery is within two days, or there’s an investigation. The couples remain together until the storkfish arrive with the bundles.”
This world was more different than it looked! “So one was misdelivered?”
“No. One was—defective.”
“Defective?”
“Unsuitable for life on Cone.”
“But what kind of crossbreed wouldn’t fit on a world like this?”
“Let me introduce you to Aurora.” Ida turned her head. “Dear, would you please come out?”
The door opened again, and a very shy girl swam out. Her eyes were downcast as if she was ashamed. It was hard to see why, as she was in her upper section a beautiful figure of a human female, and had a nice tail. She was a mermaid. She had red hair, brown eyes, and white wings.
Wings?
As usual, Dolph blurted out his question before he thought better. “How do you fly in water?”
Aurora blushed. “Not very well,” she confessed.
Embarrassed, Dolph tried to make amends by assuming the form of a male of her persuasion. He became a winged merman with gills. He spread his wings, and found that they dragged heavily in the water. “I see.”
“How did you do that?” Aurora asked, amazed.
“It’s my talent,” Dolph said, balancing awkwardly on his tail. “I can assume any living form I want.”
“Then why don’t you assume the form of a handsome man?”
Then it was Dolph’s turn to blush. He hadn’t realized that he was unhandsome. Electra had never told him. “I guess I didn’t think of it.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—I mean—I’m sorry. I’m not socially clever. I haven’t had much experience.”
“I know the feeling,” Dolph said, smiling ruefully.
She smiled back, as ruefully. “Yes.”
“How do you think we might help?” Dor asked Ida.
“I gathered from Jonathan that your home world
is oddly mixed,” Ida said. “That you have just one surface, on which land and water coexist.”
“True. But—”
“In such a realm, a winged mermaid might be able to flourish. She might live in a lake, and fly to other lakes, holding her breath.”
“She might even be able to breathe in the air,” Dolph said. “By flying through thick clouds. They always have water hidden away.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Aurora said.
“It does seem feasible,” Dor agreed. “But this is a dream. How could a dream native travel from here to our world?”
“I have pondered that,” Ida said. “Between the time when I learned of your world from Jonathan, and your arrival. She can’t travel there physically, but if there were some native creature who was willing to accept her spirit, it might work.”
“I saw a winged mermaid once,” Dolph said. “At Chex’s wedding on Mount Rushmost. But she has lungs.”
“Still, she might show me around,” Aurora said. “If I could get there.”
“I really don’t think—” Dor began.
“What is needed is a creature who is unsatisfied with its form and mind,” Ida said. “Who would be happy to let Aurora define those. And perhaps there is such a one.”
“Even if there were,” Dor said, “it would be back on Xanth, while Aurora is here. I don’t see how they could get together.”
“I’m thinking of the one who has been following you, by some wild coincidence.”
The three kings hurled a glance around. “Something has been following us?” Dor asked.
“Yes. One of my friends told me that three foreign men were coming, followed by something else. We’re not sure what that is, but it seems to be very unhappy.”
“A monster?” Dolph asked, glancing back nervously.
“I don’t know. But perhaps we can find out. Here it comes now.”
The three of them looked back together. There was a stirring in the water, and a vague shape appeared.
“The blob!” Dolph exclaimed. “The one that was moaning in Castle Zombie.”
“I told Millie to give it some sleep potion,” Bink said. “That must have enabled it to join our dream.”
“So it followed us, hoping for help,” Dolph concluded. He had somehow suspected that Grandfather Bink would be involved, when Ida spoke of wild coincidence.
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