“Right—the Jack of diamonds,” the voice retorted. “Now I’ll run up the Union Jack to signal a crackerjack cab. You have some applejack while you wait.”
So they sat at the nearby table, where there was a jug of cider, and drank cups of it while waiting. It had a tangy taste, and was very good. Soon Chlorine’s head was spinning pleasantly.
A burly man appeared on the path. He had a big double-bitted axe slung over his shoulder.
“Are you the cab?” Chlorine inquired, admiring his muscles.
“I’m no cad,” the man protested. “I’m just a passing lumberjack.” He glanced at the jug. “But you’d be best off, miss, to ease off on that applejack before your head spins off.”
Chlorine put her hands up to stop her head from completing another revolution. It did make her feel less dizzy. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, lovely lass.” The man ambled on.
Chlorine flushed with pleasure at his compliment. Then she remembered that she really was lovely, now, so the compliment was well deserved. Still, it was a pleasure she was not well accustomed to, so she knew she would continue to enjoy it.
In due course a cloud of dust zoomed up and abruptly stopped. On its side was printed SPEED DEMON CAB. A door opened in its side.
Chlorine didn’t quite trust this. She looked at Nimby. Nimby got up and climbed into the cab. So she followed. It had a plush seat in the back, wide enough for the two of them.
The door slammed closed. The cab leaped into motion with a loud squeal. Suddenly they were zooming at frightening speed along the path; the tree trunks were passing at a blurring rate. “Are you sure—?” Chlorine asked Nimby.
Nimby nodded yes. So she relaxed. There was another seat ahead of them, and beyond that a transparent pane, and beyond that the onrushing forest. They were going somewhere very fast.
She saw a sign in the front. It said “YOUR DRIVER: Demon Strator. Unsafe, unreliable, discourteous.”
For some reason, that caused her to be worried again. “Nimby, that sign—”
Then a creature appeared on the front seat. It had horns, so did seem to be a demon. “That’s just to scare away low tippers,” Strator said. “You paid plenty of jack in advance, so you have nothing much to fear. Unless I lose control.” The cab swerved perilously close to a tree.
“Oh.” Chlorine pondered. “What is a tip?”
“From you, I will accept a kiss, you luscious creature.”
She glanced again at Nimby, who nodded, so she leaned forward and kissed the demon on his right ear.
The cab zoomed into the air, looped, and landed again at speed. “Hoo!” Strator said. “That’s one potent kiss!”
“Thank you,” she said, blushing. It was fun, because she had seldom had cause to blush before.
The cab zoomed on until it came to a squealing halt at the very brink of an awesomely deep crevasse. “Transfer,” Strator announced. “The Gap Chasm is beyond my range.”
“Thank you,” Chlorine said, climbing out of the cab. “I think you’re a nice speed demon.”
This time it was the demon who blushed. He turned a rich royal purple, and steam rose from him. “Gotta go now,” he muttered, and the cab spun about and zoomed back northeast.
It was now dusk, so the speedy ride had taken at least some time. A large dark shape swooped out of the deep shadow of the Gap and landed before them. It seemed to be a bird almost as big as a roc, completely black. It clutched a small basket in its talons, and on the basket was a tag: FLY BY NIGHT.
Chlorine nodded. That surely meant that this bird flew only by night, so their timing was right.
Nimby climbed into the basket, which turned out to be much larger than it had first appeared; the bird’s size had dwarfed it. Chlorine joined him. Then the bird spread its wings and hopped over the brink, into the chasm.
Chlorine’s gizzard surged up to her throat as the basket dropped, not realizing that the rest of her was falling. Then the wings caught the dark air, and things settled into place.
They sailed not across, but along inside the chasm, remaining in its pooled darkness while the last of daylight touched its rims and the clouds floating above it. Chlorine peered down, hoping to catch a glimpse of the notorious Gap Dragon, but all she saw was palpable blackness. Since she didn’t feel like palpating it, she tried to ignore it. Then, as the darkness rose beyond the gap and spread across the terrain of Xanth proper, the bird lifted out and flew low over the jungle. Chlorine saw the lights of little fires below, where the folk of Xanth had their hearths, or maybe those were dragons pumping up their bellies for nocturnal hunting. It was all rather pretty.
The lights of a castle came into sight, showing its walls and turrets. That wasn’t pretty, it was perfectly beautiful! Chlorine stared in rapt wonder, wishing she could visit a castle like that. It must be so great to live in such an edifice, to be a Princess, or even a serving maid. She just felt such longing for the kind of life she would never have. She might be beautiful now, but when she stopped keeping company with Nimby she would revert to her normal, dreary self, and her dream of the moment would be over. She would have shed a tear for her lost dream, if she only knew where her last tear was.
But of course, that was why she was going to see the Good Magician. So she laughed, instead, but there was a deep tinge of regret in it.
Then the bird flew right up to that beautiful castle, and landed outside its moat. This was her destination!
Nimby climbed out of the basket, and she followed. Then the fly-by-night bird departed, swiftly and silently. They were alone in the night beside the glorious lighted castle.
Chlorine was sure she knew better than to try to pass the challenges and enter the castle at night. She would wait until morning. That would give her the chance to get some sleep, too.
Then her bright though sleepy mind thought of something. “Nimby—do you need to sleep?”
The handsome man-form shook his head no.
“So it won’t be an imposition for you to stay awake and guard me from possible harm? I mean, I think you’re a great creature, but I don’t want to wear you out before your time.” She laughed ruefully. “In my natural self I wouldn’t have thought to ask that, because I wouldn’t have cared. But I’m nice now, so I do care. And it’s practical too, because you’re all that makes me so wonderful. So it’s okay?”
Nimby nodded yes.
“Okay. You keep watch, and wake me one instant before dawn, so I can see the sunrise. I’m sure I’ll appreciate its beauty much more than I used to.” She started to gather some leaves to make a bed, then had another thought. “Would it bother you to revert to your natural form, so I could use you as a pillow? Don’t hesitate to say no, because—”
Nimby’s donkey-headed dragon form was back. He lay on the ground, and she lay down and put her head against his side. It had scales, but now the scales were soft.
“You know, you do look funny,” she remarked. “But the more things you do for me, the more I like you, even as you are now. I hope that doesn’t embarrass you.”
Nimby wiggled an ear, seeming pleased rather than embarrassed. Chlorine stretched, snuggled down, and faded quickly into sleep.
She woke as something tickled her nose. “Who? What?” she asked, surprised. Then she realized that it was one of Nimby’s ears touching her. She had told him to wake her an instant before dawn, and he had done it. “Thanks,” she said.
An instant passed, and dawn appeared. Colored rays of light speared up into the sky, brightening it. Nearby clouds glowed. Then, when it was safely light, the sun poked its face up from behind the trees. The sun never came out at night, because it was afraid of the dark.
“Oh, it’s beautiful, just as I knew it would be!” Chlorine exclaimed. “Thank you, Nimby, for waking me in time.” She rubbed his donkey ears affectionately.
She got up and considered. “You fetch us something good to eat, while I attend to my morning ablutions,” she said.
Nimby tr
undled off, and she found a bush for some business, then brought out her brush and went over her hair. It was now gloriously luxuriant, glistening in the brightening light of day. It was still greenish yellow, but now the green was the luster of healthy plants, and the yellow was the burnish of gold. She gazed into a puddle, and saw her reflection: she resembled a princess just awakening from beauteous slumber. It was really too bad this adventure would have to end sometime.
She returned to where they had slept, and saw Nimby approaching with a mouthful of fresh chocolate and vanilla pies. He must have found a good pie tree. His mouth in this form was quite large, so there was a good collection of large pies, and none of them was damaged.
Then she had a second thought. “Will I get fat, eating such stuff?”
Nimby shook his head no. He ought to know, as he was the one who had transformed her. So Chlorine dived in with gusto. The dragon watched, seeming pleased.
Until her third thought. “Aren’t you hungry, Nimby? You should have some pie too.”
Nimby hesitated, then nodded yes. But still he looked at the pies somewhat doubtfully.
“Oh, in your natural form you could gobble them all up, and leave no more for me? Then change into your handsome man-form, and you won’t need as much.”
The dragon disappeared, and the handsome man appeared. Nimby man took a pie and began to eat. He seemed to like it well enough.
Chlorine’s fourth thought caught up with her. “Biting bugs! They must be all over, in the night—but I wasn’t bitten. Were you protecting me from that harm too?”
Nimby nodded.
“I don’t know what I’ll do without you, when this ends,” she said. “I’m really getting to like this adventure, and we haven’t even done anything significant or naughty yet.” She eyed the man, but decided that naughtiness could wait; she had three challenges to pass to get into the castle.
In due course, not one moment overdue, they went to stand at the bank of the moat. The castle was lovely in the early morning, too. The moat was calm, and seemed to be without a moat monster. There was a drawbridge, but it was raised; no way to cross by foot. However, there was a boat tied to a stake in the bank.
She saw something lying in the grass at her feet, and stooped to pick it up. It was a marking pen, the kind that she had used in the past to mark children’s names on clothing. There was no sense wasting it, so she put it in her purse.
“Well, let’s get to it, Nimby,” she said briskly. “It’s my challenge, so you just follow along as I work things out. I’m sure you know how to handle each challenge, but I think it wouldn’t count if you gave me any hints. Besides, I should enjoy the thrill of it. I want to put this good mind of mine to the test.”
She stepped toward the boat—and a large ferocious bat appeared from nowhere. It flew straight at her, then banked and veered away at the last half instant. She saw the word COM on its underside as it did.
Chlorine was taken aback. In fact, she almost sat down as she was taken back too far and lost her footing. Fortunately she recovered her feet before going down. When she had been a plain nothing girl it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d sprawled turvy-topsy and showed her panties to the sky, but now she was a luscious creature, and the humiliation would have been awful.
“That’s no ordinary bat,” she said. “That’s a com-bat! I’ll never be able to pass it.”
Nimby, behind her, shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He was being neutral. That made her suspicious, not of his motive, which was surely amicable, but that there was a way, and he was trying not to give it away. And of course, there was a way, because otherwise it wouldn’t be a legitimate Good Magician challenge.
She pondered a moment, and cogitated an instant, and thought a while, knowing that this would not be easy unless she found the right approach. It wouldn’t do to try to get around the bat, or to fight it. She had to outsmart it, or at least figure out the proper way to denature it. There had to be something obscure that would be obvious the moment she thought of it. Because that was the way everyone knew the Good Magician’s challenges were. He didn’t want just anybody barging in to pester him with Questions, so he made it difficult to reach him, but he did play fair, by his definition. By anyone else’s definition he was a grouchy gnome, of course, but nobody else’s definition counted for much here. So what was there? Her fine new mind focused, exploring possibilities and bypaths at a rapid rate. What was obscure but obvious? There wasn’t anything special in the landscape; no evidence of doors to underground bypasses or such. In fact, the only thing even a quarter way remarkable was the marking pen she had found.
Ha! That was surely it! Things did not just lie around the Good Magician’s premises; everything was here for a reason. So this had to be the key.
She brought out the pen. It was just a garden-variety marker, somewhat used but still serviceable. How could this ever help her?
Her good mind focused on the problem. Assuming that this was the key, how would it operate? It was a pen, a marker, a—a Magic Marker? To mark the com-bat? That seemed unlikely, because the bat would destroy her lovely, beautiful but not phenomenally muscular or armored body before she got close enough to do that. A pen was made mainly for writing—
For writing. Suppose she wrote something with it—something that would help her? Like GO AWAY COM-BAT?
She fished in her purse and found a little notepad. She took the cap off the marker pen and wrote GO AWAY COM-BAT.
Nothing happened. But of course, she hadn’t tested it yet. She took half a step toward the moat—and the bat zoomed up before her, threateningly. She hastily canceled the rest of her step and retreated, and the bat zoomed away.
Obviously that wasn’t it. But maybe she just hadn’t found the right way to use it. How else would a magic marker work? She couldn’t think of anything much, despite her superior mind.
She glanced at Nimby, but he remained carefully neutral. And she wasn’t about to ask for his help anyway. “Um, if you want to take a nap or something—” No, he didn’t sleep, he claimed. “Maybe play a mental game that entertains you? I hate to bore you with my indecisions.”
Nimby nodded, and went into a state of repose. She wondered what a donkey-headed dragon had to think about. At some point she would ask him. But now she had other business.
She crossed out her message—and there was a tiny shimmer around her. She looked around, afraid that a quake monster might be approaching to shake her up, but all was normal. So it must have been an indication of magic. Crossing out the message had canceled it, and that had had magical effect. If only she knew what it was.
She focused her mind once more. Why was she having so much trouble with what should be a simple matter? Somehow it seemed that even her old, dull self would have figured it out by now.
Then a dim bulb flashed over her head. Maybe this challenge was geared to her regular self. Maybe the Good Magician didn’t realize that she was now much smarter. Or maybe he realized, but didn’t care. So he had set her a simple challenge, and she was being too intellectual about it.
“So let’s try it the dull old-fashioned way,” she said.
She turned a page on the pad and wrote COM-BAT. Then she crossed out the C and wrote W. And felt the trace tingle of magic. Had it worked?
She stepped forward—and there was a small furry creature standing barely knee-high to her. It was a wombat. It tried to bar her way, but she simply stepped around it and proceeded. She had done it! She had used the magic marker to change the name, converting the deadly creature to a harmless one. The key had been in naming it, and changing the name. Obvious—to a nonintellectual person.
She came to the bank of the moat. Now, where was that dock and boat she had seen? She saw the boat, but now it was perched on muck, and between her and it was the biggest, hugest, hairiest, awfulest spider she could remember encountering. It wasn’t big enough to gobble her down in a single bite, but three or four bites would do it. Actually spiders, as she remembere
d, didn’t gobble prey down whole; they trussed them up in spiderwebs and sucked the juice out. But she didn’t want to be juiced, either, no matter how juicy her current luscious body was.
Chlorine was retreating as she pondered; it seemed to be the expedient thing to do. The spider did not follow. In fact, it had disappeared—and there was the dock she had seen before. So she reversed course, trying to reach the dock before the spider returned—and the spider reappeared. And the dock was gone.
Something was definitely odd. The spider wasn’t blocking her view of the dock; she could see handily around it. There simply was no dock. Was she up against illusion? In which case, which was the illusion: the spider or the dock? It made a difference.
She retreated a step, this time watching the spider. And the spider disappeared—and the dock reappeared. They were changing into each other! This was a dock spider.
Her fine mind began to take hold. This was definitely a challenge, and she surely wouldn’t be able to handle it by writing the word SPIDER on her pad and changing the SP to C. Even if that worked, what good would it do her, since she didn’t want cider, she wanted that dock so she could get in the boat without muddying her pretty little feet. She needed to get to that dock without it changing into the spider. How could she do that?
What was the stupidly simple answer? Immediately it came to her: bribe the spider. But what would it want, aside from a long session sucking her succulence? What else did she have that might appeal to it?
The magic marker! She no longer needed it, but maybe the spider would like it. If she made a good enough case for it, in spider terms.
She stepped toward the spider, though she was prepared to backpedal at a furious rate if she had to. “Hey, handsome creature!” she called. “How would you like something nice?”
The spider wiggled its mandibles, and a drop of slaver fell to the ground, where it smoked quietly as it digested an unfortunate little poul-tree that hadn’t even yet grown its first chick, let alone the roc bird it might have made at maturity. Chlorine felt sorry for it, but knew she couldn’t help the tree.
Yon Ill Wind Page 5
